A seamans wifes reckoning [graphic]

"A family conclave. A pretty young woman sits holding an infant in long clothes with curiously adult features; she turns towards an elderly man beside her (left); her sailor husband, who has risen from his chair, stares warily at his father. The old man, who wears a seaman's short jacket with knee-breeches, scowls towards his son, saying, "Why d'ye see I am an old Seaman and not easily imposed upon--I say that cant be my Son Jacks child why he has been married but three months and during that time he has been at sea--the thing is impossible you may as well tell me that my ship Nancy goes nine knots an hour in a dead calm, and now I look again its the very picture of Peter Wilkins the Soap Boiler." A dog sits beside him, much interested. The woman says: "My dear Father-in Law, Ill make it out very easily--Jack has been married to me three months--very well--I have been with child three months--which makes six--then he has been to sea three months has not he?-- and that just makes up the Nine!!" The husband: "Father, Farther [sic],--dont be too hard upon Poll--I know something of the log book myself--and d--m me but she has kept her reckoning like a true Seamans wife"."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state