ecially still when he carries but one eye in his head, and be dashed
if you can tell whether its twinkling back at you out of pure sweetness
of nature or because it sees a joke of its own. I believe Captain Jacka
twinkled back on Mr. Job as he twinkled on the rest of the world,
willing to be friends and search for the best side of everyone, if he
might be allowed. But Mr. Job couldn't be sure of this, and I'm fain to
admit the old boy was a trial to him, with his easy-going ways.
Job, you see, was a stickler for order; kept his accounts like the Bank
of England, all in the best penmanship, with black and red ink, and
signed his name at the end with a beautiful flourish in the shape of a
swan, all done with one stroke--he having been a school-master in his
youth, and highly respected at it until his unfortunate temper made him
shy a child out of window, which drove him out of the business, as such
things will. In young Dick Hewitt he had a captain to his mind: soap
and tidiness and punctuality, and oil and rotten-stone for the very
gun-swivels; all the crew touching caps, and nerve and seamanship on top
of all. Jacka admired the young spark, for all his boastfulness; for
his own part he could do anything with a ship but keep her tidy.
"What's the use of giving yourself on-necessary work?" he'd say in his
mild manner, if he saw one of his hands coiling a rope or housing a sail
neatly. "We may be wantin' it any minute, and then you'll be sorry for
labour thrown away." The dirtiness of his decks was a caution, and this
was the queerer because in his own parlour you might have eaten your
dinner off the floor. "I reckon," he'd explain, "when the Lord made sea
and land He meant there should be a difference, and likewise when He
made man and woman," and stuck to his untidiness afloat because it made
him the gladder to be at home again. Mary Polly, though she lived
within forty yards of the sea, and was proud of her husband as any
mortal woman, would never step on board a boat. The sight of one
(she declared) turned her stomach, and she married their only child to a
house-decorator.

All this untidiness was poison to Mr. Job, and it worked inside the man
until he was just one simmering pot of wrath, and liable to boil over at
the leastest little extra provocation.

One day--it was the tenth of July in the year 'nine; Peter's Tide, and
the Upper Town crowded with peep-shows and ranter-go-rounds, and folks
keeping the fe