“I don’t understand your letter. That which I had on Friday, enclosing Mr. Craigie’s, said that you had not drawn the money, your letter of To-day tells me that you had drawn the money, before the Letter from Southwold came. Was not that letter Mr. Craigie’s letter?
“Anyhow, I think you ought not (after all I have said) to have drawn the money (to keep in your house) till you wanted it. And you could have got it at the Bank any morning on which you got another letter from Southwold, telling you the business was to be settled.
“Moreover, I think you should have written me on Saturday, in answer to my letter. You are very good in attending to any letters of mine about stores, or fish, which I don’t care about. But you somehow do not attend so regularly to things which I do care about, such as gales of wind in which you are out, and such directions as I have given over and over again about money matters.
“However, I don’t mean to kick up another row; provided you now do, and at once, what I positively desire.
“Which is; to take the money directly to Mr. Barnard, and ask him, as from me, to pay it to my account at Messrs. Bacon and Cobbold’s Bank at Woodbridge. Then if you tell me the address of the Auctioneer or Agent, at Southwold who manage [sic] the business, Bacon and Cobbold will write to them at once that the money is ready for them directly the Lugger is ready for you. And, write me a line to-morrow to say that this is done.
“This makes a trouble to you, and to me, and to Bankers, but I think you must blame yourself for not attending to my directions. But I am yours not the less.
“E. FG.
Mr. Craigie was an old Southwold friend of the Fletcher family, with whom Fletcher
senior (Posh’s father) had spent Christmas for over forty years. The criticism of Posh’s system appears, to the impartial critic, to be both painful and true. But Posh, in this case, was not altogether to blame. This Mr. Jerry Cole, before mentioned, was keeping things back. He had a preponderating interest in that Southwold company, and he thought that the Henrietta had been sold too cheap, and that hung up the delivery. At least that’s what Posh tells me, and at this date I can’t get any better evidence than his.
Shortly after the last letter FitzGerald wrote again. Now his kind anxiety about this man, whom he still loved, outweighed all thought of money. It was a bitter winter, and Posh, he thought, was not over-hale.
“Woodbridge, Saturday.
“Dear Captain,
“Whatever is to be done about the money, do not you go over to Southwold while this weather lasts. I think it is colder than I ever knew. Don’t go, I say—there can be no hurry for the boat (even if you can get it) for a a [sic] week or so. Perhaps it may be as well at Southwold as at Lowestoft.
“I wish you were here to play Allfours with me To-night.
“Yours,
“E. FG.”
Posh got the lugger in March, 1870, and on March 2nd FitzGerald wrote to Mr. Spalding (Two Suffolk Friends, p. 118): “Posh has, I believe, gone off to Southwold in hope to bring his Lugger home. I advised him last night to ascertain first by letter whether she were ready for his hands; but you know he will go his own way, and that generally is as good as anybody’s. He now works all day in his Net-loft: and I wonder how he keeps as well as he is, shut up there from fresh air and among frowsy Nets. . . . I think he has mistaken in not sending the Meum and Tuum to the West this
spring. . . . But I have not meddled, nor indeed is it my Business to meddle now. . . .”
I think this must have been written about the date of the letter with which I commence the next chapter, or possibly a little later. It would, almost certainly, be after the catches of mackerel mentioned by “Mr. Manby” as hereinafter appears, and, very likely, after the termination of the partnership.
CHAPTER XIII
THE END OF THE PARTNERSHIP
Either in March or April, 1870, FitzGerald wrote to Posh the quaint letter which follows:—