'Why aren't you going?' Tickle asked the first man.
'I lives in Dorchester, sir. Goin' on by a later train.'
'Ain't takin' th' leaf, sir,' said the third.
'Have you no parents, or relations, or any one else you can go and stay with?'
'I'm an orphing, sir,' the man rather flummoxed him by replying. 'I'd rather stay aboard the ship than go an' see me old uncle wot lives in Peckham, sir. 'E's married agen, sir, an' 'is wife keeps a fried-fish shop.'
Tickle smiled and passed on. 'And what about you?' he queried, coming to Martin.
'Have you been to the paymaster for an advance?'
'Best part of a quid--sovereign, I means, sir.'
Tickle thought for a minute, nodded, numbered those men who were going, and then dismissed them.
Pincher thought nothing more of the conversation, but that evening he was told to go to the ship's office.
'Is your name Martin?' asked an assistant-paymaster when he arrived.
'You want some money to go on leave with, eh?'
'Yessir, please,' said the ordinary seaman, feeling hopeful.
'We can let you have thirty shillings. Is that enough?'
'Yessir,' Pincher exclaimed, his eyes glistening.
'Are you willing to pay it back at the rate of three shillings a month?'
Pincher, astounded at his good fortune, hurriedly scrawled his name, was handed a golden sovereign and ten shillings in silver, and left the office with a satisfied grin all over his face and the coins jingling in his hand. He was so pleased at his good luck that he didn't stop to consider where the money came from. All he cared about was that he had got it, and that he could go home and cut out Tom Sellon, after all.
As a matter of fact, it was Tickle himself who had acted the part of a nautical fairy godmother. He had noticed that Pincher seemed very unhappy, and had guessed the reason, and at first thought of lending him the money outright. Thirty shillings more or less meant nothing to him. But then, remembering that Martin would probably refuse the loan from feelings of pride, he hit upon a better plan; so he went to the fleet paymaster, handed him the money, and requested him to pay it over to Pincher as if it were an official advance.
'My dear Tickle,' protested Cashley, 'you'll never get it back! The boy's already in debt to the Crown, and his pay's only one-and-three a day!'