Joshua Marvel. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold
him; he soon had to shut up shop, and go to work again as a journeyman. He had two children; the first was a girl, the next was me. I heard that he was very pleased when my sister was born, because she was a girl. 'She can marry when she grows up,' he said, 'and then she will have her husband's name.' When I was born, my father wasn't pleased: he didn't want any more Meddlers, he said. But he couldn't help it; no more could I. He did what he thought was the very best thing for me-he gave me a fine Christian name to balance my surname he had me christened Praiseworthy. Now that made it worse. If I was laughed at for being a Meddler, I was laughed at more for being a Praiseworthy Meddler. Once, when I was a young fellow, I did good service in a ship I was serving in. When we came into port, the skipper reported well of me, and the owners sent for me. I went to the office, thinking that I should be promoted for my good services. The firm owned at least a dozen merchant-ships; and I should have been promoted, if it hadn't been for my name. The owners spoke kindly to me; and after I had satisfied them that I was fit for promotion, the youngest partner asked my name. I told him Meddler. He smiled, and the other partners smiled. 'What other name?' he asked. 'Praiseworthy,' I answered; 'Praiseworthy Meddler.' He laughed at that, and said that I was the only Praiseworthy Meddler he had ever met. They seemed so tickled at it, that the serious part of the affair slipped clean out of their heads; they called me an honest fellow, and said that they would not forget me. They didn't forget me; they gave me five pounds over and above my pay. If it hadn't been for my name, they might have appointed me mate of one of their ships. I was so mad with thinking about it, that I began to hate myself because I was a Meddler. If the name had been something I could have got hold of, I would have strangled it. At last I made up my mind that I would get spliced, and that I would take my lass's name the day I was married. Being on leave, and stopping at my father's house, I told him what I had made up my mind to do. He was a melancholy man-it was his name that made him so, I do believe-and he told me, in his melancholy voice, that it was the best thing I could do, and that he wished he had thought of doing so before he married. 'Wipe it out, my boy,' he said, 'wipe out the unlucky name; sweep all the Meddlers out of the world. It would have been better you had been born with a hump than been born a Meddler.' He talked a little wild sometimes, but we were used to it. I began to look about me; and one day I caught sight of a lass who took my fancy. My leave was nearly expired, and I had to join my ship in a few days. I wanted to learn all about the girl, and I was too bashful to do it myself, which is not the usual way of sailors, my dear. So I pointed out the lass to a shipmate, and told him I had taken a fancy to her, and would he get me all the information he could about her. That very night, as I was bolting the street-door, just before going to bed, I heard my shipmate's voice outside in the street. 'Is that you, Meddler?' he asked. 'Yes, Jack,' I answered. 'I thought I'd come to tell you at once,' he cried; 'I've found out all about her. Her father's dead, and her mother's married again, and the lass isn't happy at home.' 'That makes it all the better for me,' I said. 'Has she got a sweetheart?' 'None that she cares a button for, or that a sailor couldn't cut out,' he answered. 'Hurrah!' I cried; 'I will go and see her to-morrow. Thank you, Jack; goodnight.' 'Goodnight,' he said, and I heard him walking, away. Just then I remembered that I had forgotten the most important thing of all-her name. I unbolted the door, and called after him, 'What is her name, Jack?' 'Mary Gotobed!' he cried from a distance. 'Mary what?' I shouted. 'Gotobed!' he cried again. I bolted the door, and went."
Praiseworthy Meddler, pausing to take breath, cast another droll look upon his attentive auditors.
"Gotobed!" he then resumed. "Why, it was worse than Meddler! I couldn't marry a lass named Gotobed, and take her name; I didn't want to marry and keep my own name; I couldn't put them together and make one sensible name out of the two. Gotobed Meddler was as bad as Meddler Gotobed. And the worst of it all was, that I liked the lass. She was as pretty a lass as ever I set eyes on. She looked prettier than ever when I saw her the next day; and forgetting all about the names I spoke to her and lost myself."
"Lost yourself!" exclaimed Mrs. Marvel.
"Yes, my dear," said the Old Sailor, with a bashfulness that did not set ill upon him. "I fell in love."
He said this in a confidential hoarse whisper to Mrs. Marvel, as if the youngsters ought not to hear it.
"Oh, that!" said Mrs. Marvel with a smile.
"But directly she heard what my name was," continued the Old Sailor, "she burst out laughing, and ran away. I had to go to my ship soon after that; and when I came back again, she was married to some one else. So I gave up the idea of marrying; and the name I was born to has stuck to me all my life. And that is the reason why I never married, and why I never became a skipper."
They made merry over the Old Sailor's story, and over other stories that he told of the sea, and of the chances it afforded a youngster like Joshua of getting on in the world. And towards the close of the evening Mrs. Marvel fairly gave in, and promised that she would not say another word against Joshua's determination to be a sailor. In token of which submission a large jug of grog was compounded, in honor of the Old Sailor; and when that was drunk, another was compounded in honor of Joshua. Of both of which Praiseworthy Meddler drank so freely, that he staggered home to his barge in a state of semi-inebriation, singing snatches of sea-songs without intermission, until he tumbled into his hammock and fell asleep.
CHAPTER VIII
A HAPPY HOLIDAY
In after years, when Joshua was many thousands of miles away from Stepney, Dan loved to linger over the memory of one especially happy day which he, and Joshua, and Ellen and the Old Sailor spent together. Upon that day the sun was rising now; and Dan, lying in bed, was waiting impatiently for the solemn and merry church-bells to strike the hour of seven. His Sunday clothes were smoothly laid out upon a chair, close to his bed. Had the day not been an eventful one, he would not have been allowed to wear his best suit in the middle of the week. When Joshua makes his appearance in Dan's bedroom, it will be seen that he will also be dressed in his best clothes. The secret of all this is, that the lads had received permission from their parents to spend the day with the Old Sailor at the waterside, and were to be taken in a cart to the Old Sailor's castle-the barge near the Tower Stairs. Twenty times at the least had Dan said to Joshua, "I should so like to see the Old Sailor, Jo!" And Joshua, in the most artful manner, had fished for the invitation, which would have been very readily given had the Old Sailor been aware of Joshua's desire. But Joshua, like a great many other diplomatists who think themselves wise in their generation, went to work in a subtle roundabout way, and so gave himself a vast deal of trouble, which would have been saved had he come straight to the point at once. At length, one day, when the Old Sailor had said, "And how is Dan, Josh?" and Joshua had answered that he thought Dan was beginning to grow strong, he ventured to add, with inward fear and trembling: "And he would so much like to see you, sir, and hear some of your sea-stories! When I tell them they don't sound the same as when you tell them. There's no salt in them." Artful Joshua! "Well, my lad," the Old Sailor had said with a chuckle (he was not insensible to flattery, the old dog!), "why not bring him here to spend the day?"
"When shall it be, sir?" asked Joshua secretly delighted.
"Next Wednesday, Josh," said the Old Sailor. So next Wednesday it was. And Joshua ran to Dan's house wild with delight, and coaxed Dan's parents in to giving their permission.
It was on this very Wednesday morning that Dan was lying awake, waiting for seven o'clock to strike. He awoke at least two hours before the proper time to rise; and those hours appeared to him to be longer than hours ever were before. The ride itself would be an event in Dan's life; but it was not to be compared with what was to come afterwards-the spending of a whole day and night in a house on the water. During the past week Dan had been in a fever of pleasurable anticipation, and in a fever of fright also, lest it should rain upon this particular day. The previous night it had rained; and Dan, lying awake for a longer time than usual, had prayed for the rain to go away. Ellen-standing at the window in his bedroom, after she had got out his clean shirt and Sunday clothes, and brushed and smoothed them, and taken up a stitch in them here and there, as women (and girls after them) say-had seen the spots of rain falling, and, joining her prayer to his, had begged very earnestly to the rain to go away and come again another day.
And now the day was dawning; and Dan, opening his eyes, clapped his hands in delight to see the sun shining so brightly upon the broken jug