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 feast—­Mr. Job takes a stroll down the quay past the sweet-standings, and cocks his eye over the edge, down upon the deck of the old Pride that was moored alongside and fitting out for a fresh cruise.  And there, in the shade of the quay wall, sat old Captain Jacka with a hammer, tap-tapping at a square of tinplate.

“Hullo!” Mr. Job hailed.  “Where’s the crew?”

“Up riding the hobby-horses, I b’lieve,” answered Jacka, as friendly as you please.

“And in thirty-six hours you’ve engaged to have the Pride ready for sea!”

“She’s about ready now,” said Jacka, stopping to put a peppermint in his mouth.  He had bought a packet off one of the sweet-standings, and spread it on the deck beside him.  “Feast-day doesn’t come round more than once a year, and I haven’t the heart to deny them, with the work so well forward, too.”  The old fellow fairly beamed across his deck, the raffle of which was something cruel.  “There’s a fat woman up there, too.  I’m told she’s well worth seeing.”

“You call that dirty mess ’being fit for sea’?” asked Mr. Job, nodding down, but bottling up his anger after a fashion.  “Look here, Captain Tackabird, you’re a servant of the company; and I’ll trouble you to stand up and behave respectful when the company’s agent pays you a visit of inspection.”

“Cert’nly, Mr. Job.”  Jacka scrambled up to his feet as mild as milk.  “Beg your pardon, sir, I thought you’d just strolled down to pass the time of day.”

“And don’t flash that plaguey thing in my eyes, as you’re doing.”  For Jacka was standing in the sunshine now, with the tinplate in his hands blazing away like a looking-glass.

“Very well, sir.  Perhaps you’ll allow me to fetch a hat out of the cabin; for my head feels the heat powerful, being so bald.  They do say it twinkles a bit, too, when the sun catches it the right way.”