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What followed was a very different affair from that which transpires weekly at the parish pay-table.
I immediately ordered the sentry to keep him further off, for I was very much affronted at his supposing me capable of being bribed to disobey my orders. About eleven o'clock the dockyard boat, with all the pay-clerks, and the cashier, with his chest of money, came on board, and was shown into the fore-cabin, where the captain attended the pay-table.
Whereupon the lady at the pay-table had started up, scattering her coins, and shrieked; and this had started the stampede. "Which," added Sam in a whisper to Tilda, "was lucky for us in a way; becos Glasson, after tacklin' Mortimer be'ind the scenes an' threatenin' to have his blood in a bottle, had started off with Gavel to fetch the perlice.
About eleven o'clock the dock-yard boat, with all the pay clerks and the cashier, with his chest of money, came on board, and was shown into the fore-cabin, where the captain attended the pay-table. The men were called in, one by one, and as the amount and wages due had been previously calculated, they were paid very fast.
You don't," said the master, curtly. Bare feet shuffled, disapproving voices murmured all round; he went on as if he had not heard: "You have been skulking nearly all the passage and now you want to come out. You think you are near enough to the pay-table now. Smell the shore, hey?" "I've been sick... now better," mumbled Wait, glaring in the light.
"Everything's the matter. Bill's gone!" "Confusion and Exeunt." "Gone?" echoed the boy blankly. "'Ad a row with Gavel this very aft'rnoon. Got the sack, with a week's pay, an' packed up his kit after tea an' 'ooked it. Bess Burton told me all about it, knowin' me an' Bill to be friends she's the woman sits at the pay-table an' gives the change.
The captain, with his officers grouped on the quarterdeck, and the paymaster with his staff, began the work of payment. On the seaman's name being called, he stepped toward the pay-table and gave his number on the ship's book; then receiving the money due to him walked out of the gangway.
The crew were paid advanced wages; and, five minutes after the money had been put into their hats at the pay-table, it was all most dexterously transferred to the pockets of their wives, whose regard and affection for their husbands at this peculiar time was most exemplary. On the following day, the crew of the Samarang made sail with full hearts and empty pockets.
But the wide-awake clerk called out a name, and the paying-off business began. One by one they came up to the pay-table to get the wages of their glorious and obscure toil. They swept the money with care into broad palms, rammed it trustfully into trousers' pockets, or, turning their backs on the table, reckoned with difficulty in the hollow of their stiff hands. "Money right? Sign the release.
But the wrench had set her free to uncross her legs, and she did so, murmuring her gratitude. In the midst of the merry-making, and while the roundabouts were crowded and going at full speed, the boy in charge of the engine had taken occasion to announce to the lady at the pay-table that his pressure was a hundred-and-forty-seven, and what had taken the safety valve he couldn't think.
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