George Howe, whose schooner was launched so that FitzGerald was just in time to see her masts slipping along, was one of the sons of “old John Howe,” who, with his wife, was caretaker of Little Grange for many years. The schooner was, Posh tells me, exceptionally cheap, and FitzGerald’s reference to her meant that she was too cheap to be good.

Since Posh’s letter-writing powers received praise from one so qualified to bestow it, there must have been a falling off from want of practice, or from some other cause, for the old man is readier with his cod lines than with his pen by a very great deal, and it is difficult to believe that he ever wielded the pen of a ready writer. But perhaps FitzGerald was so fascinated by the qualities which did exist in his protégé that he saw his friend through the medium of a glamour which set up, as it were, a mirage of things that were not. Well, it speaks better for a man’s heart to descry

non-existent merits than to imagine vain defects, and it was like the generous soul of FitzGerald to attribute excellencies to his friend which only existed in his imagination.

CHAPTER II
“REMEMBER YOUR DEBTS”

In 1866 Posh became the owner of a very old deep-sea lugger named the William Tell, and, to enable him to acquire the nets and gear necessary for her complete equipment as a North Sea herring boat, he borrowed a sum of £50 from Tom Newson, and a further sum of £50 from Edward FitzGerald. FitzGerald thought that Newson should have security for his loan (vide Two Suffolk Friends, p. 104), but Newson refused to accept any such thing. He, too, seems to have been under the influence of Posh’s fascination. On October 7th, 1866, FitzGerald wrote (Two Suffolk Friends, p. 105): “I am amused to see Newson’s devotion to his young Friend. . . . He declined having any Bill of Sale on Posh’s

Goods for Money lent; old as he is (enough to distrust all Mankind) . . . has perfect reliance on his Honour, Industry, Skill and Luck.”

About this time FitzGerald must have written the following fragment, in which he refers to Newson’s loan:—

“You must pay him his Interest on it when you can, and then I will take the Debt from him, adding it to the £50 I lent you, and letting all that stand over for another time.

“My dear Posh, I write all this to you, knowing you are as honest a fellow as lives: but I never cease hammering into everybody’s head Remember your Debts, Remember your Debts. I have scarcely ever [known?] any one that was not more or less the worse for getting into Debt: which is one reason why I have scarce ever lent money to any one. I should not have lent it to you unless I had confidence in you: and I speak to you plainly now in order that my confidence may not diminish by your forgetting one farthing that you owe any man.

“The other day an old Friend sent me £10, which was one half of what he said he had borrowed of me thirty years ago! I told him that, on my honour, I wholly forgot ever having lent him any money. I could only remember once refusing to lend him some. So here is one man who remembered his Debts better than his Creditor did.

“I will ask Newson about the Cork Jacket. You know that I proposed to give you each one: but your Mate told me that no one would wear them.

“Yesterday I lost my purse. I did not know where: but Jack had seen me slip into a Ditch at the Ferry, and there he went and found it. So is this Jack’s Luck, or mine, eh, Mr. Posh?

“E. FG.”

The debt to Newson was subsequently taken over by FitzGerald, and a new arrangement made on the building of the Meum and Tuum in the following year. But this fragment is important, in that it strikes a note of warning, which had to be repeated again and again during the partnership between the poet and the fisherman. Posh was happy-go-lucky in his accounts. I believe he was perfectly honest in intention, but he did not understand the scrupulosity in book-keeping which his partner thought essential to any business concern.

FitzGerald himself was very far from being meticulous where debts due to him were concerned. Dr. Aldis Wright can remember more than one instance in which FitzGerald tore up an acknowledgment of a loan after two or three years’ interest had been paid. “I think you’ve paid enough,” or “I think he’s paid enough,” would be his bland dismissal of the debt due to him. Many Woodbridge people had good cause