‘Say!’ cried Mark. ‘That I’d take anything I could get. “If that’s so,” says the mate, “why, bring a glass of rum;” which they brought according. And my wages, sir,’ said Mark in high glee, ‘pays your passage; and I’ve put the rolling-pin in your berth to take it (it’s the easy one up in the corner); and there we are, Rule Britannia, and Britons strike home!’
‘There never was such a good fellow as you are!’ cried Martin seizing him by the hand. ‘But what do you mean by “doing” Mr Bevan, Mark?’
‘Why, don’t you see?’ said Mark. ‘We don’t tell him, you know. We take his money, but we don’t spend it, and we don’t keep it. What we do is, write him a little note, explaining this engagement, and roll it up, and leave it at the bar, to be given to him after we are gone. Don’t you see?’
Martin’s delight in this idea was not inferior to Mark’s. It was all done as he proposed. They passed a cheerful evening; slept at the hotel; left the letter as arranged; and went off to the ship betimes next morning, with such light hearts as the weight of their past miseries engendered.
‘Good-bye! a hundred thousand times good-bye!’ said Martin to their friend. ‘How shall I remember all your kindness! How shall I ever thank you!’
‘If you ever become a rich man, or a powerful one,’ returned his friend, ‘you shall try to make your Government more careful of its subjects when they roam abroad to live. Tell it what you know of emigration in your own case, and impress upon it how much suffering may be prevented with a little pains!’
Cheerily, lads, cheerily! Anchor weighed. Ship in full sail. Her sturdy bowsprit pointing true to England. America a cloud upon the sea behind them!
‘Why, Cook! what are you thinking of so steadily?’ said Martin.
‘Why, I was a-thinking, sir,’ returned Mark, ‘that if I was a painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?’
‘Paint it as like an Eagle as you could, I suppose.’