Bramble pulled his leathern case out of his pilot jacket, and counted out ten ten-pound notes.  “There, Jack, you ought to give me a receipt, for I signed for you at the India House.”

“Oh, you’ve plenty of witnesses,” replied I, as I collected the notes, and, giving them to Virginia, told her to take them to my mother, who was upstairs in her room.

“To tell you the truth, Jack, this two hundred pounds, which I earned so easily, has just come in the right time, and with it and my pilotage I shall now be able to do what I have long wished.”

“And what’s that?” inquired I.  “Something for Bessy, I suppose.”

“Exactly, Tom, it is something for Bessy; that is, it will be by-and-by.  I’ve a good matter of money, which I’ve laid by year after year, and worked hard for it, too, and I never have known what to do with it.  I can’t understand the Funds and those sort of things, so I have kept some here and some there.  Now, you know the grass land at the back of the cottage:  it forms part of a tidy little farm, which is rented for seventy pounds a year, by a good man, and it has been for sale these three years; but I never could manage the price till now.  When we go back to Deal, I shall try if I can buy that farm; for, you see, money may slip through a man’s fingers in many ways, but land can’t run away; and, as you say, it will be Bessy’s one of these days—­and more, too, if I can scrape it up.”

“You are right, Bramble,” said Peter Anderson, “and I am glad to hear that you can afford to buy the land.”

“Why, there’s money to be picked up by pilotage if you work hard, and aren’t afraid of heavy ships,” replied Bramble.

“Well, I never had a piece of land, and never shall have, I suppose,” said my father.  “I wonder how a man must feel who can stand on a piece of ground and say, ‘This is my own!’”

“Who knows, father? it’s not impossible but you may.”

“Impossible!  No, nothing’s impossible, as they say on board of a man-of-war.  It’s not impossible to get an apology out of a midshipman, but it’s the next thing to it.”

“Why do they say that, father?”

“Because midshipmen are so saucy—­why, I don’t know.  They haven’t no rank as officers, nor so much pay as a petty officer, and yet they give themselves more airs than a lieutenant.”

“I’ll tell you why,” replied Anderson.  “A lieutenant takes care what he is about.  He is an officer, and has something to lose; but a midshipman has nothing to lose, and therefore he cares about nothing.  You can’t break a midshipman, as the saying is, unless you break his neck.  And they have necks which aren’t easily broken, that’s sartain.”