for your
good. Yes, I have got another berth; and if it wasn't for leaving you
unprovided, Captain, I'd go to it now, sooner than I'd take them names
from you, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light
for your good. Why do you reproach me for being poor, and not standing
in my own light for your good, Captain? How can you so demean yourself?'

'Look ye here, my boy,' replied the peaceful Captain. 'Don't you pay out
no more of them words.'

'Well, then, don't you pay in no more of your words, Captain,' retorted
the roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing into the
shop. 'I'd sooner you took my blood than my character.'

'Because,' pursued the Captain calmly, 'you have heerd, may be, of such
a thing as a rope's end.'

'Oh, have I though, Captain?' cried the taunting Grinder. 'No I haven't.
I never heerd of any such a article!'

'Well,' said the Captain, 'it's my belief as you'll know more about
it pretty soon, if you don't keep a bright look-out. I can read your
signals, my lad. You may go.'

'Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain?' cried Rob, exulting in his
success. 'But mind! I never asked to go at once, Captain. You are not
to take away my character again, because you send me off of your own
accord. And you're not to stop any of my wages, Captain!'

His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister and
telling the Grinder's money out in full upon the table. Rob, snivelling
and sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took up the
pieces one by one, with a sob and a snivel for each, and tied them up
separately in knots in his pockethandkerchief; then he ascended to the
roof of the house and filled his hat and pockets with pigeons;
then, came down to his bed under the counter and made up his bundle,
snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he were cut to the heart by old
associations; then he whined, 'Good-night, Captain. I leave you without
malice!' and then, going out upon the door-step, pulled the little
Midshipman's nose as a parting indignity, and went away down the street
grinning triumphantly.

The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if
nothing unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on with
the greatest assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle understand,
though he read a vast number, for Rob the Grinder was scampering up one
column and down another all through the newspaper.

It is doubtful whether t