Mr Lawrence well judged that if Greyquill locked him up for debt Old Harbour Town would rise against him. His windows would certainly be broken, his person might go in danger, for there was more than one who had suffered at the hands of Greyquill who would be grateful for any sort of excuse to administer a sound cudgelling to the old man, and take his chance of the law, fortified by the conviction that if it came to a fine the amount would be subscribed several times over. Mr Lawrence's business on board the _Minorca_ did not keep him long. He was primarily there to see to the arrangements of his own cabin, and also of another cabin aft which it was his design to convert into a sick-bay. This end was chiefly accomplished in this cabin by the rough construction of a couple of bunks. Just before he left the ship, the young fellow Paul, whom he had told to come down on Saturday, stepped from the fore part of the ship where he had been watching two or three men caulking, and gave Mr Lawrence his usual salute of a pluck at a forelock and a scrape of a hinder foot. "Yes," said Mr Lawrence, running his eyes over him, "the articles are opened at Mr Acton's offices. Go and tell the manager--but here----" He pulled out a card upon whose face was some printed address, and with a pencil struck out the address, and wrote to the effect that the bearer called Paul had been engaged by Mr Lawrence as his cabin servant. These lines he initialed, and giving the card to the youth, bade him present it at the offices before one o'clock, or he would find them closed. "Have you no better clothes than what you wear?" he said. "No, sir." "You may give an order for a suit of decent apparel fit to wait at table with, for I want you to understand that your duties may bring you to wait upon ladies and gentlemen, though you know nothing about that. Do you hear?" "Ay, your honour," answered the fellow with a grin decidedly above a clown's intelligence. "You can pay for the clothes on your return, or by drawing an advance which Mr Acton's manager will let you have. Do you know Miss Acton?" "The lady that lives at Old Harbour House along with Capt'n Acton?" answered Paul. "I mean Captain Acton's daughter." "I should think I do, sir," answered Paul, grinning. "You know her well enough, for example," said Mr Lawrence, critically surveying him as though he took counsel within himself whilst he talked, "that if I gave you a letter for her and for none other"--he frowned, and with some passion emphasised _none other_--"you are not likely to mistake, you are not likely to give it to another." "I couldn't mistake, your honour. I know the lady as I know you, and if so be as I did mistake, then I hope your honour would blow my brains out, for I shouldn't leave your side till your honour did."