"Ah!" said he, "'Lutheran devils' we are, you know; so we are bound to vanish, like other fiends, with an evil savor."
As soon, however, as Amyas was on board again, he rounded his friend Mr. Brimblecombe in the ear, and told him he had better play the man a little more, roaring less before he was hurt, and keeping his breath to help his strokes, if he wished the crew to listen much to his discourses. Frank, hearing this, bade Amyas leave the offender to him, and so began upon him with—
"Come hither, thou recreant Jack, thou lily-livered Jack, thou hysterical Jack. Tell me now, thou hast read Plato's Dialogues, and Aristotle's Logic?"
To which Jack very meekly answered, "Yes."
"Then I will deal with thee after the manner of those ancient sages, and ask whether the greater must not contain the less?"
Jack.—Yes, sure.
Frank.—And that which is more than a part, contain that part, more than which it is?
Jack.—Yes, sure.
Frank.—Then tell me, is not a priest more than a layman?
Jack (who was always very loud about the dignity of the priesthood, as many of his cloth are, who have no other dignity whereon to stand) answered very boldly—"Of course."
Frank.—Then a priest containeth a man, and is a man, and something over—viz. his priesthood?
Jack (who saw whither this would lead).—I suppose so.
Frank.—Then, if a priest show himself no man, he shows himself all the more no priest?
"I'll tell you what. Master Frank," says Jack, "you may be right by logic; but sharks aren't logic, nor don't understand it neither."
Frank.—Nay but, my recalcitrant Jack, my stiff-necked Jack, is it the part of a man to howl like a pig in a gate, because he thinks that is there which is not there?
Jack had not a word to say.
Frank.—And still more, when if that had been there, it had been the duty of a brave man to have kept his mouth shut, if only to keep salt water out, and not add the evil of choking to that of being eaten?
"Ah!" says Jack, "that's all very fine; but you know as well as I that it was not the Spaniards I was afraid of. They were Heaven's handiwork, and I knew how to deal with them; but as for those fiends' spawn of sharks, when I saw that fellow take the fish alongside, it upset me clean, and there's an end of it!'
Frank.—Oh, Jack, Jack, behold how one sin begets another! Just now thou wert but a coward, and now thou art a Manichee. For thou hast imputed to an evil creator that which was formed only for a good end, namely, sharks, which were made on purpose to devour useless carcasses like thine. Moreover, as a brother of the Rose, thou wert bound by the vow of thy brotherhood to have leaped joyfully down that shark's mouth.
