“Down at heel again!” shouted the captain, pointing to his wife’s heavy flat feet as they shuffled across the room.  “The right shoe.  Pull it up at heel, Mrs. Wragge—­pull it up at heel!  Pray allow me,” he continued, offering his arm to Magdalen, and escorting her to a dirty little horse-hair sofa.  “You want repose—­after your long journey, you really want repose.”  He drew his chair to the sofa, and surveyed her with a bland look of investigation—­as if he had been her medical attendant, with a diagnosis on his mind.

“Very pleasant! very pleasant!” said the captain, when he had seen his guest comfortable on the sofa.  “I feel quite in the bosom of my family.  Shall we return to our subject—­the subject of my rascally self?  No! no!  No apologies, no protestations, pray.  Don’t mince the matter on your side—­and depend on me not to mince it on mine.  Now come to facts; pray come to facts.  Who, and what am I?  Carry your mind back to our conversation on the Walls of this interesting City, and let us start once more from your point of view.  I am a Rogue; and, in that capacity (as I have already pointed out), the most useful man you possibly could have met with.  Now observe!  There are many varieties of Rogue; let me tell you my variety, to begin with.  I am a Swindler.”

His entire shamelessness was really super-human.  Not the vestige of a blush varied the sallow monotony of his complexion; the smile wreathed his curly lips as pleasantly as ever his party-colored eyes twinkled at Magdalen with the self-enjoying frankness of a naturally harmless man.  Had his wife heard him?  Magdalen looked over his shoulder to the corner of the room in which she was sitting behind him.  No the self-taught student of cookery was absorbed in her subject.  She had advanced her imaginary omelette to the critical stage at which the butter was to be thrown in—­that vaguely-measured morsel of butter, the size of your thumb.  Mrs. Wragge sat lost in contemplation of one of her own thumbs, and shook her head over it, as if it failed to satisfy her.

“Don’t be shocked,” proceeded the captain; “don’t be astonished.  Swindler is nothing but a word of two syllables.  S, W, I, N, D—­swind; L, E, R—­ler; Swindler.  Definition:  A moral agriculturist; a man who cultivates the field of human sympathy.  I am that moral agriculturist, that cultivating man.  Narrow-minded mediocrity, envious of my success in my profession, calls me a Swindler.  What of that?  The same low tone of mind assails men in other professions in a similar manner—­calls great writers scribblers—­great generals, butchers—­and so on.  It entirely depends on the point of view.  Adopting your point, I announce myself intelligibly as a Swindler.  Now return the obligation, and adopt mine.  Hear what I have to say for myself, in the exercise of my profession.—­Shall I continue to put it frankly?”

“Yes,” said Magdalen; “and I’ll tell you frankly afterward what I think of it.”