I wouldn't give it you, Dickie—you see, I made it

in trade.

You're saved from soiling your fingers, and if you have no child,

It all comes back to the business. Gad, won't your wife be wild!

Calls and calls in her carriage, her 'andkerchief up to 'er eye:

66

Daddy! dear daddy's dyin'!" and doing her best to cry.

Grateful? Oh, yes, I'm grateful, but keep 'er away from here.

Your mother 'ud never ha' stood 'er, and, anyhow, women are queer. . .

There's women will say I've married a second time. Not quite!

But give pore Aggie a hundred, and tell her your lawyers'll fight.

She was the best o' the boiling-you'll meet her before it ends;

I'm in for a row with the mother-I'll leave you settle my friends:

For a man he must go with a woman, which women don't understand

Or the sort that say they can see it they aren't the marrying brand.

But I wanted to speak o' your mother that's Lady Gloster still.

I'm going to up and see her, without it's hurting the will.

Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you,

If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do.

They'll try to prove me a loony, and, if you bungle, they can;

And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't he a man ?)

There's some waste money on marbles, the same as McCullough tried—

Marbles and mausoleums-but I call that sinful

pride.

There's some ship bodies for burial-we've carried 'em, soldered and packed;

Down in their wills they wrote it, and nobody I called them cracked.

But me I've too much money, and people might. All my fault:

It come o' hoping for grandsons and buying that Wokin' vault.

I'm sick o' the 'ole dam' business; I'm going back where I came.

Dick, you're the son o' my body, and you'll take charge o' the same!

I'm going to lie by your mother, ten thousand mile

away,

And they'll want to send me to Woking; and that's where you'll earn your pay.

I've thought it out on the quiet, the same as it ought to be done-

Quiet, and decent, and proper-an' here's your orders, my son.

You know the Line? You don't, though. You write to the Board, and tell

Your father's death has upset you an' you're goin' to cruise for a spell,

An' you'd like the Mary Gloster-I've held her ready for this

They'll put her in working order an' you'll take her out as she is.

Yes, it was money idle when I patched her and put her aside

(Thank God, I can pay for my fancies!)-the boat where your mother died,

By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank,

We dropped her-I think I told you-and I pricked

it off where she sank.

[Tiny she looked on the grating-that oily, treacly

sea-]

Hundred and eighteen East, remember, and South just three.

Easy bearings to carry-three South-three to the

dot;

But I gave McAndrews a copy in case of dying-or

not.

And so you'll write to McAndrews, he's Chief of the Maori Line;

They'll give him leave, if you ask 'em and say it's business o' mine.

I built three boats for the Maoris, an' very well

pleased they were,

An' I've known Mac since the Fifties, and Mac knew

me-and her.

After the first stroke warned me I sent him the

money to keep

Against the time you'd claim it, committin' your dad to the deep;

For you are the son o' my body, and Mac was my oldest friend,

I've never asked 'im to dinner, but he'll see it out to the end.

Stiff-necked Glasgow beggar, I've heard he's prayed for my soul,

But he couldn't lie if you paid him, and he'd starve before he stole.

He'll take the Mary in ballast-you'll find her a lively ship;

And you'll take Sir Anthony Gloster, that goes on his wedding-trip,

Lashed in our old deck-cabin with all three portholes wide,

The kick o' the screw beneath him and the round blue seas outside!

Sir Anthony Gloster's carriage-our 'ouse-flag flyin' free

Ten thousand men on the pay-roll and forty freighters at sea!

He made himself and a million, but this world is a fleetin' show,

And he'll go to the wife of 'is bosom the same as he ought to go.

By the heel of the Paternosters-there isn't a chance to mistake

And Mac'll pay you the money as soon as the bubbles break!

Five thousand for six weeks' cruising, the stanchest freighter afloat,

And Mac he'll give you your bonus the minute I'm out o' the boat!

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