“So you will, if I boil a pot o’ ’tatoes with your legacy—but it will only be char-coal.”
“Well, I believe you are about right, Tom; still, somehow or other, the old woman always picks out a piece or two of gold when I’m rather puzzled how to raise the wind. I never keeps no ’count with her. If I follow my legs before she, I hope the old soul will have saved something; for you know when a man goes to kingdom come, his pension goes with him. However, let me only hold on another five years, and then you’ll not see her want; will you, Tom?”
“No, father; I’ll sell myself to the king, and stand to be shot at, at a shilling a day, and give the old woman half.”
“Well, Tom, ’tis but natural for a man to wish to serve his country; so here’s to you, my lad, and may you never do worse! Jacob, do you think of going on board of a man-of-war?”
“I’d like to serve my apprenticeship first, and then I don’t care how soon.”
“Well, my boy, you’ll meet more fair play on board of a king’s ship than you have from those on shore.”
“I should hope so,” replied I, bitterly.
“I hope to see you a man before I die, yet, Jacob. I shall very soon be laid up in ordinary—my toes pain me a good deal lately!”
“Your toes!” cried Tom and I both at once.
“Yes, boys; you may think it odd, but sometimes I feel them just as plain as if they were now on, instead of being long ago in some shark’s maw. At nights I has the cramp in them till it almost makes me halloo out with pain. It’s a hard thing, when one has lost the sarvice of his legs, that all the feelings should remain. The doctor says as how it’s narvous. Come, Jacob, shove in your pannikin. You seem to take it more kindly than you did.”