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All this untidiness was poison to Mr. Job, and it worked inside the man until he was just one simmering pot of wrath, and liable to boil over at the leastest little extra provocation.

One day–it was the tenth of July in the year ‘nine; Peter’s Tide, and the Upper Town crowded with peep-shows and ranter-go-rounds, and folks keeping the feast–Mr. Job takes a stroll down the quay past the sweet-standings, and cocks his eye over the edge, down upon the deck of the old Pride that was moored alongside and fitting out for a fresh cruise. And there, in the shade of the quay wall, sat old Captain Jacka with a hammer, tap-tapping at a square of tinplate.

“Hullo!” Mr. Job hailed. “Where’s the crew?”

“Up riding the hobby-horses, I b’lieve,” answered Jacka, as friendly as you please.

“And in thirty-six hours you’ve engaged to have the Pride ready for sea!”

“She’s about ready now,” said Jacka, stopping to put a peppermint in his mouth. He had bought a packet off one of the sweet-standings, and spread it on the deck beside him. “Feast-day doesn’t come round more than once a year, and I haven’t the heart to deny them, with the work so well forward, too.” The old fellow fairly beamed across his deck, the raffle of which was something cruel. “There’s a fat woman up there, too. I’m told she’s well worth seeing.”

“You call that dirty mess ‘being fit for sea’?” asked Mr. Job, nodding down, but bottling up his anger after a fashion. “Look here, Captain Tackabird, you’re a servant of the company; and I’ll trouble you to stand up and behave respectful when the company’s agent pays you a visit of inspection.”

“Cert’nly, Mr. Job.” Jacka scrambled up to his feet as mild as milk. “Beg your pardon, sir, I thought you’d just strolled down to pass the time of day.”

“And don’t flash that plaguey thing in my eyes, as you’re doing.” For Jacka was standing in the sunshine now, with the tinplate in his hands blazing away like a looking-glass.

“Very well, sir. Perhaps you’ll allow me to fetch a hat out of the cabin; for my head feels the heat powerful, being so bald. They do say it twinkles a bit, too, when the sun catches it the right way.”

So down he went to the cabin, and up he came again to find Mr. Job with his best coat-tails spread, seated on the carriage of the Pride’s stern-chaser.

“Oh, Lord!” he couldn’t help groaning.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Mr. Job, nothing.” The fact was, Jacka had smeared a dollop of honey on that very gun-carriage to keep the wasps off him while he worked. The sweet-standings, you see, always drew a swarm of wasps on feast-days, and the old man never could abide them since his accident with the bee-skip.

Mr. Job sat there with his mouth screwed up, eyeing the whole length of the lugger.

“I’d like to know why you were hammering out that tinplate?” said he. “I can see with my own eyes you’ve been knocking dents in the deck; but I s’pose that wasn’t your only object.”

“I reckoned to tack it over this here hole in the bulwarks where the tide swung her up against the quay-end.” Captain Jacka showed him the place.

“I’d have let you have a fresh plank if you’d only reported the damage in time.”

“Oh,” said Jacka, “a scrap of tin will answer just as well–every bit.”

“I can’t think, Captain Tackabird, how it comes that you’ve no more regard for appearances. Just look at the Unity, for instance, and how young Hewitt keeps her.”

“Born different, I suppose.”

“Ay, and if you don’t look out you’ll end different. Patching a boat with tin!” Mr. Job let out a rasping kind of laugh. “But that’s Polperro, all over. Do you know what they tell about you, down to St. Ann’s?”–Mr. Job came from St. Ann’s–“They say, down there, that every man-child in Polperro is born with a patch in the seat of his–“