But even this wears off in time.
What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get
a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to,
weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think
the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly
and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance?
Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old
sea-captains may order me about--however they may thump and punch
me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right;
that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--
either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is;
and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub
each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make
a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never
pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of.
On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is
all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.
The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction
that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us.
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