Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/44

32 with a big red hat and feather, and a silver whistle to him, walking on the quarter-deck.

"Good morning, Job," says the little sea captain, "and how dy'ye like my ship?"

"Sir," says Job, "I never see a finer."

So the little sea captain takes Job forrard and gives him a bite in the forecastle, and then takes him aft and gives him a sup in the cabin.

"And Job," he says, "how would ye like to sail aboard this beautiful ship?"

So Job, who was all wide awake with the beauty of her, he says:

"Oh, sir, I'd like it of all things; she be so comely to see."

And immediately he said that, Job see the little captain pipe his whistle, and a lot of little sailors in red hats ran up and cast her hawsers off. And then the sheets sheeted home of themselves and the ship swung away from Bristol, and there was Job nodding on the quarter-deck, a mile out to sea, the ship running west like a deer.

"You'll be in the port watch," said the little captain to him, "and woe betide you, Lanky Job, if we catch you asleep in your watch."