Benjamin avoided
conversation with the captain as much as was possible, lest he might
ask questions it would be embarrassing to answer. The captain, too,
refrained from too much freedom with his youthful passenger, lest he
might make it painful for him, now that he was running away from a
girl.
The sloop was becalmed off Block Island for several hours, when the
sailors resorted to catching cod for a pastime, and slapping them down
one after another on the deck.
"Cruel! Inhumanity!" cried Benjamin, who entertained the singular idea
that it was murder to take the life of any harmless creature; and for
this reason he would not touch animal food.
"What is cruel?" inquired one of the crew.
"Taking the life of codfish that never did you any harm."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed the captain; "how you goin' to eat 'em before you
catch 'em?"
"Don't eat them, and then there will be no need of catching them,"
responded Benjamin. "They are in their native element now; let them
stay there, and you keep in yours. They are in as great misery on this
deck as you would be down there in the water."
"What put such a queer notion as that into your head?" said the
captain, who was surprised that a sane man should hold such an
opinion. "Don't _you_ eat fish?"
"No, nor any other kind of meat; I have not touched a particle for
more than two years.
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