This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.


SALVAGE
195

time, and when she did it was to horrify Tish. For she said: "Damnation!"

Tish immediately turned and left the cabin, leaving me to press a cold knife against the lump on Aggie's head and to put her back into her berth. She refused the hammock absolutely. She said she had forgotten where she was, and had merely reached out for her bedroom slippers, which were six feet below, when the whole thing had turned over and thrown her out.

She insisted that she did not remember saying anything improper, but that the time Tish's horse had thrown her in the cemetery she had certainty used strong language, to say the least.

I remember telling Tish this, and she justified herself by the subconscious mind, which she was studying at the time. She said that the subconscious mind stored up all the wicked words and impulses which the conscious mind puts virtuously from it. And she recalled the fact that Mr. Ostermaier, our clergyman, taking laughing gas to have a tooth drawn, tried to kiss the dentist on coming out, and called him a sweet little thing—though Mrs. Ostermaier is quite a large woman.

We became quite friendly with Mr. Burton during the remainder of the voyage. He formed the habit of coming down every evening before