“Well, if you was my boy,” retorted the farmer, “I should command you to shut up. It’s the last place for you to go. Better dig potatoes all your days.”

“I will shut up,” repeated James, quite amused at the farmer’s decided way of opposing a seafaring life. He did not mention the subject again.

James completed his four months’ labour with the farmer, for which he received twelve dollars a month— forty-eight dollars in all—with the farmer’s laconic endorsement:

“You’ve done well.”