"If you can't pay _your_ footing," he says to me, "don't think as we're a-goin' to take it in mouth; so just shut up," he says, "and mind your own business;" and then, afore I knew what was up, that slight little fellow with cheeks flaming, and eyes flashing, had got hold of Bill, big as he was, and with his fingers inside his handkerchief, shook away at him like a terrier does a rat--shook him till his teeth chattered; and the great cowardly bounceable chap roared for mercy, and at last went down upon his knees, while, with his teeth set, that young fellow shook him till the whole shop roared again with laughter. "Give it him, little 'un," says one; "Stick to him, young 'un," says another; while big Bill Smith looked as if he was being murdered, till the young chap sent him over against a plough-tub, where he knocked against a glue-kettle, and the half-warm stuff came trickling over his doughy white face, and he lay afraid to move. "There's your beggarly footing," says the young chap, shying down two half-crowns on the big bench; and then, without another word, he walked to his place and tried to go on with his work. I never did see a set of men look more foolish in my life than ours did that night; and first one and then another slipped into his work, till all were busy; while them two half-crowns lay on the table winking and shining in the gaslight, and not a man had the face to come forward to pick them up and send for the beer. Last of all, it was getting towards seven, when, now quite cool, the young chap beckons one of the boys and sends him out for two gallons and a half of sixpenny; and when it came, goes himself and pours for the whole shop, even offering the pot to Bill Smith; but he wouldn't take it, but growled out something, when the whole shop laughed at him again, and the rest of that evening he got chaffed awfully. Next morning I'd been thinking how to get some fresh sheets stitched in the young chap's books, so as to be as little expense as possible, and when I got to the shop he was there looking at his heap, when I found that though working men do wrong sometimes, there's the real English grit in them; and here, before we came, if the chaps hadn't walked off the damaged copies, shared them amongst 'em, and put fresh ones from their own heaps, so as it never cost my young mate a shilling. But it's a bad system, men. Have your beer if you like, but don't ask a poor hard-up fellow to rob self, wife, and child to pay his footing. CHAPTER TWO. ABOARD A LIGHT-SHIP.