The Sailor

"Lookin' for anything?" were the words that Ginger spoke. Moreover, he spoke them blandly, yet with such a subdued air that he might have been talking in his sleep. The Sailor, whose eyes were far away in the gray mists of the morning, was looking for nothing, it seemed.

"Which way you goin'?" asked Ginger, in the same tone of mild somnambulism.

"Dunno," said the Sailor, his eyes farther away than ever.

"Don't know," repeated Ginger.

At this point, he ventured to look very hard and straight into the face of the Sailor. His knowledge of the human race was pretty considerable for one of his years, and there was something about the wearer of the fur cap that interested him. The face under it was fine-drawn, much tanned by the weather, open as the sky. Ginger then flung an expert's eye over the lean length of blue jersey which surmounted a grotesque pair of leggings.

"You don't know," said Ginger. "Well, suppose you walk as far as the docks?"

The Sailor didn't seem to mind.

"Been long at sea?" inquired Ginger, as with intimate local knowledge he piloted the young man through a series of short cuts.

"Six year."

"Have ye so!" Ginger was surprised and impressed. "Like it?"

The eyes of the Sailor looked straight down into those of Ginger. But he didn't say anything.

"You didn't like it?"

"No."

"Why did you stick it, then?"

"Dunno."

The conversation languished a moment, but Ginger's curiosity was increasing.

"Still foller the sea?"

"No."

"What's yer job?"

"Ain't got one."

Ginger stroked a resolute jaw.

"Lookin' for a billet?"

"Yep."

"Ashore?"

The Sailor nodded.

"Better come with me, then," said Ginger, with an air of decision. "Dare say we can fix you at our shop. Fifteen bob a week … fifteen bob and a tizzey … if you leave it ter me."

The heart of the Sailor leaped under his jersey. This was big money as money was understood aboard the Margaret Carey.

At the end of a narrow street they came suddenly upon the dock gates. Through these on the left, then to the left again, and then to the right was the private wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited, and also at Hull and Grimsby. Ginger, having told the Sailor tersely to wait outside, entered the decrepit wooden office at the entrance to the wharf, with the air of a partner in the firm. After he had had two minutes' conversation with a melancholy individual with a red nose and a celluloid collar, he beckoned to the Sailor to come inside.

The Sailor entered the office like a man in a dream.

"Name?" said, or rather snapped, the Individual.

"Enry Arper."

The Individual took down the time book from the rack above his head with a vehemence that seemed quite uncalled for, opened it savagely, dipped a pen in a cracked inkpot and dashed down the name ferociously.

"Sign."

The Sailor took up the pen coolly and with a sense of power. The Individual was a mere babe at the breast compared to Mr. Thompson and the Old Man. Moreover, the ability to sign his name was his one literary accomplishment and he was honorably proud of it. Klondyke had taught him that, and he had hung on for all he was worth to such a priceless asset. H-e-n with a Hen, r-y Henry, H-a-r with a Har, p-e-r Harper – the letters were formed very carefully with his tongue sticking out of his mouth.

Ginger, rather impressed by the insouciance of the whole proceeding, then led the Sailor across the yard to his duties. He wasn't quite such a guy as he looked. There was something there it seemed; something that went pretty deep. Ginger noted it not unfavorably. He was all for depth. He was a great believer in depth.

The Sailor was informed by this new and providential friend that he had stood out for the princely emolument of seventeen and a tizzey, and had been able to get it. This was big money for his rank of life, but his occupation was menial. He had to haul sacks, to load and unload cargoes. Still he didn't complain. It was the life of a gentleman in comparison with being afloat on the high seas.

To be sure his money was not as big as it looked. He had to live out of it and to find a berth to sleep in at night. But making every allowance for longshore extravagance there could be no doubt that this new existence was sheer luxury after six years of Sing and wet hash and hard-tack and a bed in the half-deck of the Margaret Carey.

Dinner time came at twelve o'clock, and under the ægis of Ginger, the Sailor walked up the main street once more to Ike's coffee stall, and at Ginger's expense had as much as he could eat for sixpence. He wanted to pay his own shot and Ginger's also, but Ginger simply would not hear of such a thing. This was His, he said firmly; and when Ginger spoke firmly it generally had to be His whatever it was or might be. It was nice of Ginger; all the same that paladin was far-sighted, he was clear-headed, he was sure and cool. What Ginger didn't know was not knowledge, and it was no less a person than Ike who said so.

For example, after dinner, which took exactly twelve minutes by the clock of the Booteries across the road and opposite the stall, Ginger remarked almost in the manner of one who communes with his subliminal self, "There's one thing yer wantin'."

The Sailor looked incredulous. At that moment he felt it was not in the power of wide earth or high heaven to offer him anything further.

"You want a belt for your brass." Ginger spoke behind his hand in a whisper. "Mon't carry it loose. Wear it round your waist, next your skin. Money's money."

Ike, absorbed in the polite occupation of brushing stray crumbs of rock cake from the strip of grimy oilcloth which graced the counter, was so much impressed by Ginger's grasp of mind that he had the misfortune to bring down a jubilee mug with his elbow, without breaking it, fortunately.

Ginger laid such emphasis upon the point that the Sailor accompanied him across the street to Grewcock's emporium, where body belts were kept in stock. A careful survey of all to be found on the premises, together with an examination, equally careful, of their prices convinced Ginger that better value for the money could be had elsewhere. Thus they withdrew lower down the street to Tollemache and Pearson's, where unfortunately the scale of charges was even higher.

This was discouraging, but there was a silver lining to the cloud. It appeared that Ginger had a belt, which in his own opinion was far superior to anything they had yet seen; it was Russia leather of the finest quality and he was willing to sell it for less than it cost if the Sailor was open to the deal. The Sailor was not averse from doing business, as Ginger felt sure would be the case, when the material advantages had been pointed out to him. But as Ginger had not the belt upon him he suggested that they should call at his lodgings on their way back to the docks in order that the Sailor might inspect it.

Ginger's lodgings were within a stone's throw of the wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited. Not only were they very clean and comfortable, but also remarkably convenient; in fact, they were most desirable lodgings in every way. Their only drawback was they were not cheap. Otherwise they were first class.

By a coincidence the Sailor, it seemed, was in need of good lodgings as well as a belt for his money. Before he returned to the wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited, at one o'clock, he had been provided with things so necessary to his comfort, well-being, and social status.

V

The Sailor paid six-and-six for the belt of Russia leather, and in Ginger's opinion that was as good as getting it for nothing. Also he agreed to share bed and board with Ginger for the sum of twelve shillings a week. It was top price, Ginger allowed, but then the accommodation was extra. Out of the window of the bedroom you could pitch a stone into the wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited.

This arrangement, in Ginger's opinion, was providential for both parties. Such lodgings would have been beyond Ginger's means had he been unable to find a decent chap to share them with him. Then the Sailor was young, in Ginger's opinion, in spite of the fact that he had been six years at sea. It would be a great thing in Ginger's opinion for so young a sailor to be taken in hand by a landsman of experience until he got a bit more used to terrier firmer.

So much was the Sailor impressed by Ginger's disinterestedness that at six o'clock that evening, when his first day's work was done, he brought his gear from the wharf to No. 1, Paradise Alley. Ginger superintended its removal in the manner of an uncle deeply concerned for the welfare of a favorite nephew. Indeed this was Ginger's permanent attitude to the Sailor from this time on; all the same, he received twelve shillings in advance for a week's board and lodging. Uncle and nephew then sat down to a high tea of hot sausages, with unlimited toast and dripping, before a good fire, in a front parlor so clean and comfortable that the mind of the Sailor was carried back a long six years to Mother and the Foreman Shunter.

When Henry Harper sat down to this meal with Ginger opposite, and that philanthropist removed the cover from three comely sausages, measured them carefully and helped the Sailor to the larger one-and-a-half, his first thought was that he was now as near heaven as he was ever likely to get. What a change from the food, the company, and the squalor of the Margaret Carey! Klondyke himself could not have handed him the larger sausage-and-a-half with an air more genuinely polite. There was a self-possession about Ginger that was almost as wine and music to the torn soul of Henry Harper.

As the Sailor sat eating his sausage-and-a-half and after the manner of a sybarite dipping in abundant gravy the perfectly delicious toast and dripping, he felt he would never be able to repay the debt he already owed to Ginger. That floating hell which had been his home for six long years, that other hell the native haunt of Auntie where all his early childhood had been passed, even that more contiguous hell in the next street but two, the abode of Grandma, were this evening a thousand miles away. Just as the mere presence of Klondyke had once given him courage and self-respect which in his darkest hours since he had never altogether lost, so now, after such a meal, the mere sight of Ginger sitting at the other side of the fire, smoking Log Cabin, put him in new heart, touched him, if not with a sense of joy, with a sense of hope.

As became a man of parts Ginger was not content to sit for the rest of the evening smoking Log Cabin and gazing into the fire. At a quarter past seven, by the cuckoo clock on the chimneypiece, there came a knock at the outer door of the room which opened on the street. This was to herald the arrival of Ginger's own private newspaper, the Evening Mercury, which had been brought by a tattered urchin of nine, of whom the Sailor caught a passing glimpse, and as in a glass darkly beheld his former self.

In the eyes of the Sailor hardly anything could have ministered so much to Ginger's social position as that every evening of his life, Sundays excepted, his own newspaper should be delivered at No. 1, Paradise Alley. It was impossible for the Sailor to forget his early days in spite of the fact that fortune had come to him now in a miraculous way. His world was still divided into those who sold papers and those who bought them. Ginger clearly belonged to the latter exclusive and princely caste. He was of the class of Klondyke – of Klondyke who in his shore-goings in the uttermost parts of the earth behaved in an indescribably regal and plutocratic manner. Sometimes it had appeared to the Sailor, such were the amazing uses to which Klondyke had put his money, that the earth was his and all the lands and the waters thereof.

Ginger's ideas were not as princely as those of Klondyke; that was, in regard to money itself. He did not throw money about in the way that Klondyke did, nor had he Klondyke's air of genial magnificence which vanquished all sorts and conditions of men and women. But in their own way Ginger's ideas were quite as imperial.

As soon as Ginger opened his evening paper he remarked, with a short whistle, "I see Wednesday has beat the Villa."

"No," said the incredulous Sailor.

It was an act of politeness on the part of the Sailor to be incredulous. He might have accepted the fact without any display of emotion. But he felt it was due to his feelings that he should make some kind of comment, for they had been stirred considerably by the victory of Wednesday over the Villa.

"Win by much?" asked the Sailor, his heart suddenly beginning to beat under his seaman's jersey.

"Three two," said Ginger.

"At Brum?"

"No, at Sheffle, in foggy weather, on a holdin' turf."

The Sailor's eyes glowed. And then with his chin in his hands he gazed deep into the fire.

"I once seen the Villa," he said in a dreaming voice. It was the proudest memory of his life.

Ginger withdrew his mind from a consideration of the Police Report and the latest performances of the Government.

"At the Palace?" Ginger's tone was deep as becomes one entering upon an epic subject.

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