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Updated: June 10, 2025
A wizened, bent, white-haired old lady answered my knock, after a preliminary inspection from a third- floor window of my appearance. This, I learnt afterwards, was old Mrs. Capps, with whom Posh had lodged since the death of his wife, fourteen years previously. "You'll find him down at the new basin," said the old lady. "He's mostly there this time o' day."
"Now look here," said I. "What's the matter? You've made appointment after appointment, and kept none of them. Why don't you wish to see me?" Posh shuffled his feet on, the sanded bricks. "Tha'ss like this here, master," said he. "I ha' had enow o' folks a comin' here an' pickin' my brains and runnin' off wi' my letters and never givin' me so much as a sixpence." "Oho!" I thought.
Thompson is the first suggestion that FitzGerald has any idea of ending the partnership, a suggestion which became fully developed in 1870. But before Posh was hard at it every day, fishing off the Norfolk coast, his "guv'nor" wrote him a note in a much more cheerful strain.
But with FitzGerald, that kind, solicitous gentleman who never asserted the claims of his station in life before an inferior, the obtrusive display of this spirit of independence was as unnecessary as it was cruel. And I think Posh understands this now. He certainly never meant to hurt the feelings of his old governor. But he chafed at the care which his friend took of him.
In 1867 Posh sold the old William Tell to be broken up. She was barely seaworthy and unfit to continue fishing. FitzGerald had suggested that the boat should be built by a Mr. Hunt, of Aldeburgh, but Posh persuaded him to consent to Lowestoft and Dan Fuller instead. "I can look arter 'em better," said he, with some show of reason.
'That it should ever come ta this! And hev yew anything left oover? "'Yes, I say. 'I've got a matter of a hunnerd an' four pound clear arter payin' ivery farden owin', an' the stock an' nets an' gear and tew boots an' all wha'ss mortgaged ta yew. Now I'll ha'e no more on't. Ayther I'm master or I ha' done wi't. "'Oh dear! oh dear! Posh, he say, 'I din't think as yew'd made so much."
FitzGerald may not have opened his heart to his Woodbridge acquaintance so freely as he did to Posh, but he was always ready to loosen his purse-strings. The cork jackets were afterwards supplied to the crew of the Meum and Tuum, as will be apparent in the letters. "Jack," who found the purse, was Jack Newson, Tom Newson's nephew, and the "crew" of the Scandal.
Posh does not remember the last occasion on which he spoke to his old "guv'nor," but he says that whenever he did see him he, FitzGerald, would take him by the blue woollen jersey and pinch him, and say, "Oh dear, oh dear, Posh! To think it should ha' come to this." Well, this may possibly have been the case.
That is why I warn you, Posh. If I am wrong in thinking you want my warning, you must forgive me, believing that I should not warn at all if I were not much interested in your welfare. I know that you do your best to keep out at sea, and watch on shore, for anything that will bring home something for Wife and Family. But do not do so at any such risk as I talk of.
"Your's truly, "E. FG." FitzGerald having made up his mind to give Posh a lift by going into partnership with him began by finding not only the money for the building of the boat but a name for her when she should be ready for sea. It seemed to him that "Meum and Tuum" would be an appropriate name, and the Mum Tum is remembered along the coast to this day as a queer, meaningless title for a boat.
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