"Here,
sonny, take that bunk!... Don't you do it!... What's your last ship?...
I know her.... Three years ago, in Puget Sound.... This here berth
leaks, I tell you!... Come on; give us a chance to swing that chest!...
Did you bring a bottle, any of you shore toffs?... Give us a bit of
'baccy.... I know her; her skipper drank himself to death.... He was a
dandy boy!... Liked his lotion inside, he did!... No!... Hold your row,
you chaps!... I tell you, you came on board a hooker, where they get
their money's worth out of poor Jack, by--!..."
A little fellow, called Craik and nicknamed Belfast, abused the ship
violently, romancing on principle, just to give the new hands something
to think over. Archie, sitting aslant on his sea-chest, kept his knees
out of the way, and pushed the needle steadily through a white patch
in a pair of blue trousers. Men in black jackets and stand-up collars,
mixed with men bare-footed, bare-armed, with coloured shirts open
on hairy chests, pushed against one another in the middle of the
forecastle. The group swayed, reeled, turning upon itself with the
motion of a scrimmage, in a haze of tobacco smoke.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26