The incident made a deep impression on me. I learned by it that others might be worse off than I was, and also that a gift at the right time might be of the greatest service. Of this I had the proof many years afterwards. If the rich and the well-to-do did but know of what use their own or their children’s cast-off clothes would be to many not only among the labouring classes, but to people of education and refinement, struggling with poverty, they would not carelessly throw them away, or let them get into the hands of Jews, sold by their servants for a sixth of their value. I must observe that, in the course of my narrative I shall often make remarks on various ideas which, at the time I speak of, could not possibly have occurred to me.
The tall sailor and I walked along the quay. All of a sudden it occurred to me that I did not know his name. I looked up in his face and asked him.
“I’m called Peter Poplar,” he answered, with one of his kind smiles. “The name suits me, and I suit the name; so I do not quarrel with it. You’ll have to learn the names, pretty quickly too, of all the people on board. There are a good many of us, and each and every one of them will consider himself your master, and you’ll have to look out to please them all.”
“I’ll do my best to please them, Mr Poplar,” said I.
“That’s right! But I say, lad, don’t address me so. Call me plain Peter, or Peter Poplar; we don’t deal in misters aboard the Rainbow. It is all very well for shore-going people to call each other mister; or when you speak to an officer, just to show that he is an officer; but sharp’s the word with us forward—we haven’t time for compliments.”
“But I thought you were an officer, Peter,” said I. “You look like one.”
“Do I?” he answered, with his pleasant smile. “Well, Jack, perhaps I ought to have been one, and it’s my own fault that I am not. But the truth is, I haven’t got the learning necessary for it. I never have learned to read, and so I haven’t been able to master navigation. Without it, you know, a man cannot be an officer, however good a seaman he may be; and in that point I’ll yield to no man.”
Peter, as he spoke, drew himself up to his full height, and I thought he looked fit to be a very great officer indeed; even to be an admiral, such as the old gentleman in the office had spoken of.
“I am very bad at my books too,” said I. “I can just read a little though, and if I can get the chance of falling in with a book, I’ll like to read to you, Peter.”
My friend thanked me, but said books were not often seen aboard the Rainbow; nor were they found in many other merchant-craft, for that matter, in those days.