Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/89

 were the teeth of a long fringe of jagged rocks guarding the approach to it.

"Well, I'm" Captain MacNab was a pious man, and stopped himself in time.

Mr. Nicholson-Croly was not a marine engineer nor a close observer of men and manners. He noticed neither the rocks nor the Captain's half- finished sentence. The pier was certainly there—grey, strong, and impressive even in the distance. He saw no reason why the steamer should not lie alongside it.

"I suppose," he said, "that you can come in some time to-morrow?"

Captain MacNab's piety failed him.

"I'll see you damned, and your Government along with you—and it's what they deserve if they built that pier—before I pile up my ship on those rocks."

"Do you mean to say that you won't go alongside the pier?"

"You may with safety take your Bible oath to it that it's exactly what I do mean," said Captain MacNab.

Mr. Nicholson-Croly went on shore, and spent the evening writing an indignant account of Captain MacNab's behaviour to the authorities in Dublin Castle. He got by return of post a card which informed him that his letter was received, its contents noted, and that a reply would be forthcoming in due course. After a week the reply arrived. The authorities were unable to understand Captain