Cap'n Jacka was pleased as Punch, of course. He'd quite made up his mind he was to command her, seeing that, first and last, in the old Pride lugger, he had cleared over 40 per cent, for this very Company. So they sailed over and took thorough stock of the new craft, and Jacka praised this and suggested that, and carried on quite as if he'd got captain's orders inside his hat—which was where he usually carried them. Mr. Job looked sidelong down his nose—he was a leggy old galliganter, with stiverish grey hair and a jawbone long enough to make Cap'n Jacka a new pair of shins—and said he, "What do'ee think of her?"
"Well," said Jacka, "any fool can see she'll run, and any fool can see she'll reach. I reckon she'll come about as fast as th' old Pride, and if she don't sit nigher the wind than the new revenue cutter it'll be your sailmaker's fault."
"That's a first-class report," said Mr. Job. "I was thinking of offering you the post of mate in her."
Cap'n Jacka felt poorly all of a sudden. "Aw," he asked, "who's to be skipper, then?"
"The Company was thinkin' of young Dick Hewitt."
"Aw," said Cap'n Jacka again, and shut his mouth tight. Young Dick Hewitt's father had shares in the Company and money to buy votes beside.
"What do'ee think?" asked Mr. Job, still slanting his eye down his nose.
"I'll go home an' take my wife's opinion," said Cap'n Jacka.
So when he got home he told it all to his funny little wife that he doted on like the apple of his one eye. She was a small, round body, with beady eyes that made her look like a doll on a pen-wiper; and she said, of course, that the Company was a parcel of rogues and fools together.
"Young Dick Hewitt is every bit so good a seaman as I be," said Cap'n
Jacka.