“Yes,” cried Jack angrily; “and it ‘caps me,’ as you call it, to hear a good servant like you talk about giving up a comfortable place and want to go on a long and dangerous voyage. Are you not well fed and clothed and paid, and have you not a good bed?”
“Yes, sir; yes sir; yes, sir,” cried Edward; “but a man don’t want to be always comfortable, and well fed, and to sleep on a feather bed. He’s a poor sort of a chap who does. I don’t think much of him. It’s like being a blind horse in a clay mill, going round and round and round all his life. Why, he never gets so much change as to be able to go the other way round, because if he did the mill wouldn’t grind.”
“Pooh!” cried Jack sharply. “It is not true: you can have plenty of change. Clean knives first one day, and boots first the next, and then begin with the plate.”
“Ha—ha! haw—haw! he—he!” cried the man, boisterously, laughing, and in his enjoyment lifting up one leg and putting it down with a stamp over and over again.
“Don’t stand there laughing like an idiot!” cried Jack angrily. “How dare you!”
“Can’t help it, sir, really, sir; can’t help it. You made me. But go on, sir. Do. Chuck some books at me for being so impudent.”
“I will,” cried Jack fiercely, “if you don’t leave the room.”
“That’s right, sir; do, sir; it’s stirred you up. Why, you have got the stuff in you, Master Jack. I do believe you could fight after all if you was put to it. You, sir, actually, sir, making a joke about the knives and boots. Well, I wouldn’t have believed it of you.”
“Leave the room, sir!”
“Yes, sir, directly, sir; but do please ask the governor to take me, sir.”