"Anyway," he answered, with a suggestion of defiance and more than
a suggestion of a sneer, "it's the most ye should expect from me,
and certainly it's the most ye'll get."
His lordship frowned, and dabbed his lips with a handkerchief.
"I don't think that I quite like the way you put it. Indeed,
upon reflection, Captain Blood, I am sure that I do not."
"I am sorry for that, so I am," said Blood impudently. "But
there it is. I'm not on that account concerned to modify it."
His lordship's pale eyes opened a little wider. Languidly he raised
his eyebrows.
"Ah!" he said. "You're a prodigiously uncivil fellow. You
disappoint me, sir. I had formed the notion that you might be a
gentleman."
"And that's not your lordship's only mistake," Bishop cut in.
"You made a worse when you gave him the King's commission, and so
sheltered the rascal from the gallows I had prepared for him in
Port Royal."
"Aye - but the worst mistake of all in this matter of commissions,"
said Blood to his lordship, "was the one that trade this greasy
slaver Deputy-Governor of Jamaica instead of its hangman, which is
the office for which he's by nature fitted.
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