“Why don’t you ship on board of a privateersman?”
“I couldn’t do it, sir,” said Tom.
“Why not?”
“Well, sir; it may sound very foolish of me to say so, but the truth is that I don’t like the fighting.”
“Don’t like the fighting!” said Mr. Lovejoy, raising his eyebrows. “Come, Tom, that won’t do. Why, when that junk attacked the Quaker City off Ceylon, there was not a man aboard that fought like you. Captain Austin told me all about it, though you would never do so, and I haven’t forgotten it. And now you pretend to tell me that you are afraid.”
“No, sir,” said Tom Granger, very hot about the ears; “it ain’t that; it’s the kind of fighting that I don’t like. When such a junkfull of coolies as that was came down on us, a man was bound to fight for his own life and the lives (and more beside) of the women aboard, and there was no great credit to him in doing it. If the worst came to the worst, I wouldn’t so much mind entering the navy, but I don’t like the notion of going out to run foul of some poor devil of a merchant captain, who, maybe, has all of his fortune in his ship,—and that’s the truth sir.”
“But, Tom, the navy does the same thing.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom, “but they do it for the sake of war, while privateers go out for their own gain alone. I don’t see, sir, that they are so very much better than pirates, except that they don’t do so much murder and that the law allows them.”
At this, Mr. Lovejoy’s face began to grow a little bit redder than usual. “Very well,” said he, getting up and standing with his back to the fire, “suit yourself.”
By this Tom knew that it was intended for him to go, which he accordingly did.