"Ay, and if you don't look out you'll end different. Patching a boat with tin!" Mr. Job let out a rasping kind of laugh. "But that's Polperro, all over. Do you know what they tell about you, down to St. Ann's?"—Mr. Job came from St. Ann's—"They say, down there, that every man-child in Polperro is born with a patch in the seat of his—"
Mr. Job stood up and cast a hand behind him, to explain. . . .
"I put it there to keep off the wopses," said Captain Jacka.
"But what did he say?" asked Mary Polly, when her husband brought home the tale.
"First he said, 'I'll make you pay for this.' Well, that was fair enough, for I ought to have warned him; but when I asked the price, and where the stuff could be matched—for 'twas his best suit, you understand—all of a sudden he stamps his foot and lets fly with the most horrible oaths. It fairly creamed my flesh to hear him. He's a man of wrath, my love, and the end of him will be worse than the beginning."
"I daresay; but he'll give you the sack before that happens."
The two poor old souls looked at one another; for Job had control of all the privateering companies in Polperro, and influence enough to starve a man out of the place.
"Lev us take counsel of the Lord," said the old boy, as she knew he
would. So down on their knees they went, and prayed together.
Jacka even put up a petition for Mr. Job, but Mary Polly couldn't say
"Amen" to that.
The next morning Captain Jacka went down to the Pride at the usual hour, but only to find his crew scrubbing decks and Mr. Job ready for him. "There's your marching orders," says the enemy, handing him a paper; "and if you want a character at any time, just come to me, and I'll give you a daisy."
Well, the old chap said no word, but turned about then and there, and back along the quay like a man in a dream. All the way he kept fumbling the document without daring to open it, and when he reached his own door he just sat down on the little low wall outside, laid the cursed thing on his knee, pulled a bandanna out of his breeches pocket, and polished the top of his poor head till it fairly blazed in the eye of the sun.