FOOTNOTES: [1] This celebrated personage is the prototype of Mr Nobody on board of a man-of-war.
[B] Widows' men are imaginary sailors, borne on the books, and receiving pay and prize-money, which is appropriated to Greenwich Hospital.
Chapter VIII
My messmates show me the folly of running in debt—Duty carried on politely—I become acquainted with some gentlemen of the home department—The episode of Sholto M'Foy.
Now that I have been on board about a month, I find that my life is not disagreeable. I don't smell the pitch and tar, and I can get into my hammock without tumbling out on the other side. My messmates are good-tempered, although they laugh at me very much; but I must say that they are not very nice in their ideas of honour They appear to consider that to take you in is a capital joke; and that because they laugh at the time that they are cheating you, it then becomes no cheating at all. Now I cannot think otherwise than that cheating is cheating, and that a person is not a bit more honest, because he laughs at you in the bargain. A few days after I came on board, I purchased some tarts of the bumboat woman, as she is called; I wished to pay for them, but she had no change, and very civilly told me she would trust me. She produced a narrow book, and said that she would open an account with me, and I could pay her when I thought proper. To this arrangement I had no objection, and I sent up for different things until I thought that my account must have amounted to eleven or twelve shillings. As I promised my father that I never would run in debt, I considered that it was then time that it should be settled. When I asked for it, what was my surprise to find that it amounted to £2 14s. 6d. I declared that it was impossible, and requested that she would allow me to look at the items, when I found that I was booked for at least three or four dozen tarts every day, ordered by the young gentlemen, "to be put down to Mr Simple's account." I was very much shocked, not only at the sum of money which I had to pay, but also at the want of honesty on the part of my messmates; but when I complained of it in the berth, they all laughed at me.
At last one of them said, "Peter, tell the truth; did not your father caution you not to run in debt?"
"Yes, he did," replied I.
"I know that very well," replied he; "all fathers do the same when their sons leave them; it's a matter of course. Now observe, Peter; it is out of regard to you, that your messmates have been eating tarts at your expense You disobeyed your father's injunctions before you had been a month from home; and it is to give you a lesson that may be useful in after-life, that they have considered it their duty to order the tarts. I trust that it will not be thrown away upon you. Go to the woman, pay your bill, and never run up another."
"That I certainly shall not," replied I; but as I could not prove who ordered the tarts, and did not think it fair that the woman should lose her money, I went up and paid the bill with a determination never to open an account with anybody again.
But this left my pockets quite empty, so I wrote to my father, stating the whole transaction, and the consequent state of my finances. My father, in his answer, observed that whatever might have been their motives, my messmates had done me a friendly act; and that as I had lost my money by my own carelessness, I must not expect that he would allow me any more pocket-money. But my mother, who added a postscript to his letter, slipped in a five-pound note, and I do believe that it was with my father's sanction, although he pretended to be very angry at my forgetting his injunctions. This timely relief made me quite comfortable again. What a pleasure it is to receive a letter from one's friends when far away, especially when there is same money in it!