“Ay, and light-hearted too, boy,” rejoined the dame, looking fondly at her son.
“Well,” continued old Tom, “supposing that Tom be provided for in that way; then now I comes to myself. I’ve an idea that I can do a good bit of work in patching up boats; for you see I always was a bit of a carpenter, and I know how the builders extortionate the poor watermen when there’s a trifle amiss. Now, if they knew I could do it, they’d all come to me fast enough; but then there’s a puzzle. I’ve been thinking this week how I can make them know it. I can’t put out a board and say, Beazeley, Boat-builder, because I’m no boatbuilder, but still I want a sign.”
“Lord, father, haven’t you got one already?” interrupted young Tom; “you’ve half a boat stuck up there, and that means that you’re half a boat-builder.”
“Silence, Tom, with your frippery; what do you think. Jacob?”
“Could you not say, ‘Boats repaired here?’”
“Yes, but that won’t exactly do; they like to employ a builder—and there’s the puzzle.”
“Not half so puzzling as this net,” observed Tom, who had taken up the needle, unseen by his mother, and begun to work; “I’ve made only ten stitches, and six of them are long ones.”
“Tom, Tom, you good-for-nothing—why don’t you let my net alone?” cried Mrs Beazeley; “now ’twill take me as much time to undo ten stitches as to have made fifty.”
“All right, mother.”
“No, Tom, all’s wrong; look at these meshes?”