Sailor. Please your honour, I’m a sailor.
O’Ded. And if you’re a sailor, an’t you ashamed to own it? A begging sailor is a disgrace to an honourable profession, for which the country has provided an asylum as glorious as it is deserved.
Sailor. Why so it has: but I an’t bound for Greenwich yet.
O’Ded. (aside to him.) Why, you’re disabled, I see.
Sailor. Disabled! What for? Why I’ve only lost one arm yet. Bless ye, I’m no beggar. I was going to see my Nancy, thirty miles further on the road, and meeting some old messmates, we had a cann o’ grog together. One cann brought on another, and then we got drinking the king’s health, and the navy, and then this admiral, and then t’other admiral, till at last we had so many gallant heroes to drink, that we were all drunk afore we came to the reckoning; so, your honour, as my messmates had none of the rhino, I paid all; and then, you know, they had a long journey upwards, and no biscuit aboard; so I lent one a little, and another a little, till at last I found I had no coin left in my locker for myself, except a cracked teaster that Nancy gave me; and I couldn’t spend that, you know, though I had been starving.
O’Ded. And so you begged!
Sailor. Begged! no. I just axed for a bit of bread and a mug o’ water. That’s no more than one Christian ought to give another, and if you call that begging, why I beg to differ in opinion.
O’Ded. According to the act you are a vagrant, and the justice may commit ye; (aside to the officer) lookye, Mr. Officer—you’re in the wrong box here. Can’t you see plain enough, by his having lost an arm, that he earns a livelihood by the work of his hands; so lest he should be riotous for being detained, let me advise you to be off. I’ll send him off after you with a flea in his ear—the other way.
Officer. Thank ye, sir, thank ye. I’m much obliged to you for your advice, sir, and shall take it, and so my service to you. [Exit.
O’Ded. Take this my honest lad; (gives money) say nothing about it, and give my service to Nancy.