“Morgan is right, admiral!” put in Conrad the corsair, acting temporarily as bo’sun.  “The times are sadly changed, and woman is no longer what she was.  She is hardly what she is, much less what she was.  The Roman Gynaeceum would be an impossibility to-day.  You might as well expect Delilah to open a barbershop on board this boat as ask any of these advanced females below-stairs to sew buttons on a pirate’s uniform after a fray, or to keep the fringe on his epaulets curled.  They’re no longer sewing-machines—­they are Keeley motors for mystery and perpetual motion.  Women have views now—­they are no longer content to be looked at merely; they must see for themselves; and the more they see, the more they wish to domesticate man and emancipate woman.  It’s my private opinion that if we are to get along with them at all the best thing to do is to let ’em alone.  I have always found I was better off in the abstract, and if this question is going to be settled in a purely democratic fashion by submitting it to a vote, I’ll vote for any measure which involves leaving them strictly to themselves.  They’re nothing but a lot of ghosts anyhow, like ourselves, and we can pretend we don’t see them.”

“If that could be, it would be excellent,” said Morgan; “but it is impossible.  For a pirate of the Byronic order, my dear Conrad, you are strangely unversed in the ways of the sex which cheers but not inebriates.  We can no more ignore their presence upon this boat than we can expect whales to spout kerosene.  In the first place, it would be excessively impolite of us to cut them—­to decline to speak to them if they should address us.  We may be pirates, ruffians, cutthroats, but I hope we shall never forget that we are gentlemen.”

“The whole situation is rather contrary to etiquette, don’t you think?” suggested Conrad.  “There’s nobody to introduce us, and I can’t really see how we can do otherwise than ignore them.  I certainly am not going to stand on deck and make eyes at them, to try and pick up an acquaintance with them, even if I am of a Byronic strain.”

“You forget,” said Kidd, “two essential features of the situation.  These women are at present—­or shortly will be, when they realize their situation—­in distress, and a true gentleman may always fly to the rescue of a distressed female; and, the second point, we shall soon be on the seas, and I understand that on the fashionable transatlantic lines it is now considered de rigueur to speak to anybody you choose to.  The introduction business isn’t going to stand in my way.”

“Well, may I ask,” put in Abeuchapeta, “just what it is that is worrying you?  You said something about feeding them, and dressing them, and keeping them in bonnets.  I fancy there’s fish enough in the sea to feed ’em; and as for their gowns and hats, they can make ’em themselves.  Every woman is a milliner at heart.”