Everyone in Polperro respected the couple, for Mary Polly kept herself to herself, and Captain Jacka was known for the handiest man in the haven to run a Guernsey cargo or handle a privateer, and this though he took to privateering late in life, in the service of the “Hand and Glove” company of adventurers.  By and by Mr. Zephaniah Job, who looked after these affairs in Polperro—­free-trade and privateering both—­ started a second company called the “Pride of the West,” and put Captain Jacka to command their first ship, the old Pride lugger; a very good choice, seeing that for three years together he cleared over forty per cent. on the adventurers’ capital.

The more was his disappointment when they built a new lugger, the Unity, one hundred and sixty tons, and Job gave the command to a smart young fellow called Dick Hewitt, whose father held shares in the concern and money to buy votes beside.  I’ve told you how Jacka swallowed his pride and sailed as mate under this Hewitt, and how he managed to heap coals of fire on the company’s head.  Well that’s one story and this is another.  I’m telling now of the second boat, when Captain Jacka, or, as you might say, Providence—­for what happened was none of his seeking, and the old boy acted throughout as innocent as a sucking-child—­left off shaming the company as honest men, and hit them slap in their pockets, where they could feel.

The bottom of the quarrel was that Mr. Job, the agent, took a dislike to Jacka.  He was one of your sour, long-jawed sort, a bit of a lawyer, with a temper like Old Nick, and just the amount of decent feeling that makes a man the angrier for knowing he’s unjust, especially when the fellow that’s hit takes it smiling instead of cursing; and more especially still when he carries but one eye in his head, and be dashed if you can tell whether its twinkling back at you out of pure sweetness of nature or because it sees a joke of its own.  I believe Captain Jacka twinkled back on Mr. Job as he twinkled on the rest of the world, willing to be friends and search for the best side of everyone, if he might be allowed.  But Mr. Job couldn’t be sure of this, and I’m fain to admit the old boy was a trial to him, with his easy-going ways.  Job, you see, was a stickler for order; kept his accounts like the Bank of England, all in the best penmanship, with black and red ink, and signed his name at the end with a beautiful flourish in the shape of a swan, all done with one stroke—­he having been a school-master in his youth, and highly respected at it until his unfortunate temper made him shy a child out of window, which drove him out of the business, as such things will.  In young Dick Hewitt he had a captain to his mind:  soap and tidiness and punctuality, and oil and rotten-stone for the very gun-swivels; all the crew touching caps, and nerve and seamanship on top of all.  Jacka admired the young spark, for all his boastfulness; for his own part he could do anything with a ship