Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Gingham walked down from the hotel to the water's side, and engaged a
boat, which was to take him on board the packet for eighteen-pence;
he, Gingham, understanding thereby, according to the tenor of many
previous bargains at the same rate of payment, that he was to be taken
on board, and put on shore again. On this, however, the last day of
our abode at Falmouth, the two boatmen, thinking they might safely try
it on, and conjecturing also that Gingham's time might possibly be too
valuable to be wasted in discussion, determined to take a different
view of the subject, and exact a second fare for landing him. The boat
reached the packet, Gingham went on board, the boatmen made fast to
a harbour-buoy, and waited the result. Gingham went below, made his
arrangements, came on deck, and hailed his boat to take him ashore. The
elder boatman civilly touched his hat, and remarked, with a winning
smile, that they hadn't been paid "nuffin" for bringing him _on board_.
Gingham replied, that he should pay as usual when they had got back to
the quay. The boatman, courteous as before, again touched his hat, and
answered, simpering, "Beg your pardon, sir, but this ear last day, when
the peckit's hoff, jeddlemen hol-ways pays bode ways, cumin aboard,
and goon back again." "Oh, do they?" said Gingham, and walked down
into the cabin, where he quietly wrote his note to me, in a hand that
beat copperplate; and breakfasted upon sea biscuit, junk, and ship's
cocoa, the steward not having yet got off his stock of groceries for
the voyage. Everybody on board knew Gingham, and he had no difficulty
in getting his note brought ashore in the ship's boat, without the
knowledge of the two 'longshore fellows, who were riding at the buoy,
and who still thought they had the best of the bargain--as it is a rule
in harbour, or at any rate was in those days, that no private passenger
by a packet passed or repassed except by 'longshore boats. Gingham was
now all right, and did not care one farthing for the boatmen; for he
already had the bulk of his things on board, he was on board himself,
and his note advised me respecting his remaining matters ashore. He
continued below, having resolved, as he told me afterwards, to keep the
boatmen waiting alongside till the packet was off, and then give them
ninepence. Meanwhile he sent up, by the steward, an injunction to the
people on deck, who enjoyed not a little the false position of the two
boatmen, not on any account to let them come on board.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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