You see, I haven't the trick of putting it together, or else, I dare
say, I could spin you no end of a yarn out of many a queer thing I've
come across, and many a queer thing that's happened to me up and down.
Well, yes, I've been wrecked three times, and I've been aboard when a
fire's broken out, and I've seen some fighting--close work some of it,
and precious hot; and I was once among savages, and there was one that
was a kind of a princess among 'em--But there, that's no story, and
might happen to any man.
If I were Atlantic Jones now, I could tell you a story worth listening
to. Atlantic Jones was made of just the kind of stuff they make heroes
out of for story books. He _was_ a rum 'un was J. If I could spin a
yarn about anything, it ought to be about him, now. I only wish I
could.
Why was he called Atlantic? I can't rightly say. I don't think he was
christened so. I think it was a name he took himself. It was to pass
off the Jones, which was not particularly imposing without the first
part for the trade he belonged to. He was a play-actor.
I don't think he had ever done any very great things at it before I met
with him; anyhow, he was rather down on his luck just then, and shabby--
well, anything nearer rags, and yet making believe to have an air of
gentility about it, I never came across. I don't remember ever having a
boot-heel brought so directly under my observation which was so
wonderfully trodden down on one side. In a moment of confidence, too,
he showed me a hole in the right boot-sole that he had worn benefit
cards over, on the inside--some of the unsold ones remaining from his
last ticket night.
I was confoundedly hard up myself about that time, having just come
ashore from a trip in one of those coffin-ships, as they call them now.
"Run" they wanted to make out, but it wasn't much of a run, either. The
craft was so rotten, there were hardly two planks sticking properly
together, and the last man had scarcely got his last leg into the boat,
when the whole ricketty rabbit-hutch went down, and only as many bubbles
as you could fill a soup-plate with stayed a-top to mark the
whereabouts. But the owners wanted to press the charge, and for a while
I wanted to lie close, and that's why I came to London, which is a big
bag, as it were, where one pea's like another when they're well shaken
up in it.
You'll say it was rather like those birds who, when they hear the
sportsman coming, dive their heads into the sand, and leave the other
three-quarters of them in full view to be shot at, thinking no one else
can see it, because they don't happen to be able to see it themselves.
You'll say it was like one of them, for me, a sailor, wanting to keep
dark from the police, to go skulking about in waterside taverns and
coffee-houses Wapping and Rotherhithe way; well, perhaps it was.
It was at a coffee-house in Wapping I met Atlantic Jones, and he scared
me a bit the first time I met him. It wasn't a pretty kind of
coffee-house, not one of those you read about in that rare old book, the
_Spectator_, where the fops, and dandies, and bloods, "most did
congregate," where they "quaffed" and "toasted" in the good old style,
which, by the way, must have been somewhat of an expensive old style,
and, thank goodness, even some of us third or fourth-raters, nowadays,
can spend an odd half-hour or so from time to time very much as the
biggest nobs would spend it, though we have but a few silver pieces in
our pocket.
To the good old style of coffee-house my fine gentleman, with the
brocaded coat-tails, dainty lace ruffles, and big, powdered periwig,
would be borne, smoothly (with an occasional jolt or two that went for
nothing) in a sedan chair; and on his arrival there, if it were
night-time, would call for his wine, his long pipe, his newspaper, and
his wax-candles, and sit solemnly enjoying himself, while humbler folks
blinked in the dim obscurity surrounding him, for most likely it was not
everybody frequenting the place who could afford to be thus illuminated.
No; this was one of the most ordinary, common, and objectionable kind of
coffee-shops, where the most frequent order was for "half a pint and
slices;" where the half-pint was something thick and slab, which
analytical research might have proved to be artfully compounded of
parched peas and chicory, with a slight flavouring of burnt treacle;
while the slices were good old, solemn, stale bread, with an oleaginous
superficial surface, applied by a skilled hand, spreading over broader
surfaces than scarcely would have seemed credible; so that regular
customers, when they wanted to have their joke, would pick up a a slice,
and turn it about, and hold it up to the light and put a penny in their
right eye, making believe they had got an eye-glass there, and say,
"Look here, guv'nor! which side is it? I'm only a arskin' fear it
should fall on my Sunday go-to-meeting suit, and grease it."
Rashers of quite unbelievable rancidness, and "nice eggs," in boiling
which poultry, in its early promise, was not unfrequently made an
untimely end of, were the chief articles of consumption. The newspapers
and periodicals--which, somehow, always appeared to be a week old--were
marked by innumerable rings, where the customers had stood their
coffee-cups upon them, and there were thousands of brisk and lively
flies forever buzzing round about the customers' heads and settling on
their noses; and thousands more of sleepy flies, stationary on the walls
and ceiling, and thickly studding the show rasher in the window; and
thousands and thousands more dead flies, lying about everywhere, and
turning up as little surprises in the milk jug and the coffee-grounds,
on the butter, or under the bacon, when you turned it over.
Not in the eggs, by-the-bye. You were pretty safe from them there--the
embryo chick was the worst thing that could happen to you.
Not altogether a nice kind of place to pass one's evenings in, you are
thinking. Well, no; but it was uncommonly quiet and snug, and
uncommonly cheap, which was rather a point with me. I was, in truth, so
hard up that night that I had stood outside the window a good twenty
minutes, balancing my last coin--a fourpenny-bit--in my hand, and
tossing up, mentally, to decide whether I should spend it in a bed or a
supper. I decided on the latter, and entered the coffee-house, where I
hoped, after I had eaten, to be able to sleep away an hour or two in
peace, if I could get a snug corner to myself.
Several other people, however, seemed to have gone there with something
of the same idea, and snored up and down, with their heads comfortably
pillowed among the dirty plates and tea-things, while others carried on
low, muttered conversations, and one woman was telling an interminable
tale, breaking off now and then to whimper.
There was one empty box, in a darkish corner, and I made for that, and
ordered my meal--thanking my stars that I had been so lucky as to find
such a good place. But I was not left long in undisputed possession of
it.
While I was disposing of the very first mouthful the shop-door opened,
and a blue-cheeked, anxious-looking man peeped in, as though he were
frightened--or, perhaps, ashamed--and glanced eagerly round. Then, as
it seemed, finding nothing of a very alarming character, he came a step
further in, and stopped again, to have another look, and his eyes fell
upon me, and he stared very hard indeed, and came straight to my box,
and sat down opposite to me.
I can't say this made me feel particularly comfortable, for, you see,
for some days past I had spent the greater part of my time slipping
stealthily round corners, and dodging up and down the sneakiest courts
and alleys I could come across, with an idea that every lamp-post was a
policeman in disguise that had got his eye on me.
I can't say I felt much more comfortable at this stranger's behaviour,
when he had taken his seat and ordered a cup of coffee and a round of
toast, in a low, confidential tone of voice, just, as it struck me, as a
detective might have done who had the coffee-shop keeper in his pay.
Then he pulled a very mysterious little brown paper-covered book from
his pocket, consisting of some twenty pieces of manuscript, and he
attentively read in it, and then fixed his eyes upon the ceiling and
mumbled.
Said I to myself, "Perhaps this is some poor parson chap, learning up
his sermon for next Sunday."
But then this was only Monday night; it could hardly be that.
Presently, too, I noticed that he was secretly taking stock of me round
the side of the book. What, after all, if the written sheets of paper
contained a minute description of myself and the other runaways who were
"wanted?"
He now certainly seemed to be making a comparison between me and
something he was reading--summing me up, as it were--and I felt precious
uncomfortable, I can tell you.
All at once he spoke.
"It's a chilly evening, sir."
"Yes," I said.
"A sailor, I think?"
There was no good denying that. A sailor looks like a sailor, and
nothing else.
"Yes," I said, slowly.
"A fine profession, sir!" said he; "a noble profession. Shiver my
timbers!"
Now, you know, we don't shiver our timbers in reality; and if we did, we
shouldn't shiver them in the tone of voice the blue-cheeked man shivered
his, and I couldn't resist a broad grin, though I still felt
uncomfortable.
"I've no objection, I'm sure," said I, "if _you_ have none."
He was silent for a while, and seemed to be thinking it over, then went
on reading and mumbling. Evidently he was a detective. I had met one
before once, dressed as a countryman, and talking Brummagem Yorkshire.
A detective wanting to get into conversation with a sailor was just
likely, I fancied, to start with an out-of-the-way thing like "shiver my
timbers." I made my mind up I wouldn't be pumped very dry.
"Been about the world a good deal, sir, I suppose?" he said, returning
to the charge after a brief pause. "Been wrecked, I dare say--often?"
"Pretty often--often enough."
"Have you, now?" he said, laying down his book, and leaning back, to
have a good look at me as he drew a long breath. "A-h!"
I went on with my meal, putting the best face I could on it, and
pretending not to notice him; but it was not very easy to do this
naturally, and at last I dropped my bread and butter, and fixed him, in
my turn.
"You ought to know me in time," said I.
"I should be proud to!" he answered, readily. "I should take it as a
favour if you'd allow me to make your acquaintance--to become friendly
with you!"
"Well," said I, still with the detective idea strong on me, "you see, I
like to know whom it is I'm making friends with. What port do you hail
from, pray?"
The strange man made a plunge at me, and shook my hand heartily, shaking
also the slice of bread and butter I was holding in it.
"Did you take me for a seafaring man?" he asked, in a joyful voice.
"You really don't mean that? That's capital!"
"Well," said I, "aren't you?"
"No," he answered, in great excitement; "of course not. I'm going to be
very shortly, if I've any luck, but I've not taken to the line yet. See
here, sir, that's who I am."
And, so saying, he produced a large illustrated play-bill from his
pocket, such as you may find stuck about the walls at the East-end, or
on the Surrey side, and on which I read, "The Death Struggle. Enormous
success!" in large letters.
"Oh!" I said; "that's you, is it?"