Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/174

152 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 and 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.