“Much obliged to you,” said Mr. Clark, stiffly, “but I ain’t sure that I wants to do jobs for teetotallers.”
“Don’t you be a silly old idjit, Sam,” tolerantly recommended Mr. Dobb. “You don’t want to go cutting off your nose to spite your face—particularly with the sort of face you’ve got! I was only speaking figgerative,” he hastened to add, at Mr. Clark’s indignant stare. “Ain’t the old ‘Jane Gladys’ to be sold soon, and won’t you be out of a job then?”
“I was thinking about that when you come down ’ere,” admitted Mr. Clark, sorrowfully.
“Very well, then,” argued Mr. Dobb, “you want to do the best you can for yourself. You take on this ’ere job I’ve mentioned, and you’ll ’ave a nice easy life ashore for the next week or two, and all the time you can be looking round for a proper job. And you’re far more likely to find one by being on the spot than by rushing round frantic after you’re paid off, ain’t you?”
“Of course I am,” agreed Mr. Clark. “And I know the skipper’ll let me go any time I want to. ’E said so, only the night before last, when me and Peter and Joe give ’im a parting present for three-and-nine.”
“There you are!” cried Mr. Dobb. “You take on this job with the chap I’ve brought—Poskett, ’is name is. And while you’re doing it, me and you will keep our eyes skinned to find you a permanent job in the town.”
“I take it as very kind of you, ’Orace,” said Mr. Clark.
“Then you takes it wrong,” returned Mr. Dobb. “I’m doing it for business—strictly for business. You and me and them others ’ave worked a few good plans in the past, and I can see that my little second-’and shop in Fore Street gives us a chance to work a lot more, if we was all close together. I mean to get you and Peter Lock and Joe Tridge all settled ’ere near me in Shore’aven. Then we’ll show ’em!” he prophesied, with satisfaction.
“All four of us ’atching up ideas together again? Oh, blessed wision! Oh, ’appy prospect!” murmured Mr. Clark, moved to rhapsody. “Bring on your teetotallers!” he invited. “With that before me, I’m ready for anything!”
“I’ll call ’im, and ’e’ll tell you all about it,” said Mr. Dobb, and, going on deck, he soon returned to the fo’c’sle in convoy of a short, pallid gentleman, whose very side-whiskers seemed trimmed into semblance of stern rectitude.