“Be content, Tom,” replied his father, putting down the glass; “we’re now just square. You’ve had your raw nip, and I’ve had mine.”
Mr Drummond now came up, and asked what had been the matter. “Nothing, sir—only an accident. Tom and I had a bit of a hoist.”
As this last word had a double meaning, Mr Drummond thought that a cask had surged, when coming out of the lighter, and struck them down. He desired old Tom to be more careful, and walked away, while we proceeded to unload the lighter. The new clerk was a very heavy, simple young man, plodding and attentive certainly, but he had no other merit; he was sent into the lighter to rake the marks and numbers of the casks as they were hoisted up, and soon became a butt to young Tom, who gave him the wrong marks and numbers of all the casks, to his interrogations.
“What’s that, boy?” cried the pudding-faced fellow, with his pencil in one hand and his book in the other.
“Pea soup, 13,” replied Tom; “ladies’ bonnets, 24. Now, then, master, chalk again, pipe-clay for sodgers, 3; red herrings, 26.” All of which were carefully noted down by Mr Grubbins who, when the lighter was cleared, took the memoranda to Mr Drummond.
Fortunately, we had checked the number of the casks as they were received above—their contents were flour. Mr Drummond sent for young Tom, and asked him how he dared play such a trick. Tom replied very boldly, “that it was meant as a good lesson to the young man, that in future he did his own work, and did not trust to others.” To this Mr Drummond agreed, and Master Tom was dismissed without punishment.
As the men had all gone to dinner, I went down into the lighter to have a little chat with my old shipmates. “Well, Jacob,” said old Tom, “Tom’s not a bit wiser than he was before—two scrapes to-day, already.”
“Well, father, if I prove my folly by getting into scrapes, I prove my wit by getting out of them.”
“Yes, that may be true, Tom; but suppose we had both come down with a run, what would you have thought then?”
“I suspect, father, that I should have been past thinking.”