It has only the sense that's put into it; and that's precious little sometimes.

He didn't mind helping a young man to a ship now and then, he said, but if we kept on coming constantly it would soon get about that he was doing it for money.
"A pretty thing that would be: the Senior Shipping-Master of the Port of London hauled up in a police court and fined fifty pounds," says he.
"I've another four years to serve to get my pension.

It could be made to look very black against me and don't you make any mistake about it," he says.
"And all the time with one knee well up he went on swinging his other leg like a boy on a gate and looking at me very straight with his shining eyes.

I was confounded I tell you.

It made me sick to hear him imply that somebody would make a report against him.
"Oh!" I asked shocked, "who would think of such a scurvy trick, sir ?" I was half disgusted with him for having the mere notion of it.
"Who ?" says he, speaking very low.