THE DINNER IN THE RESTAURANT--HACO MEETS AN OLD FRIEND AND BECOMES
COMMUNICATIVE.
The room to which Haco led his daughter was a small oblong one, divided
off into compartments similar to those with which we are familiar in
eating-houses and restaurants of the poorer class. It formed part of
the Home, but was used by the general public as well as by seamen, who
wished to order a meal at any time and pay for it.
Haco Barepoles, being at the time a boarder in the home, was entitled to
his dinner in the general mess-room, but being bent on enjoying his meal
in company with Susan, he chose to forego his rights on that occasion.
Being the hour at which a number of seamen, labourers, clerks, and
others were wont to experience the truth of the great fact that nature
abhors a vacuum, the room was pretty full, and a brisk demand was going
on for soup, tea, coffee, rolls, and steaks, etcetera, all of which were
supplied on the most moderate terms, in order to accommodate the
capacities of the poorest purse.
In this temple of luxury you could get a small bowl of good soup for one
penny, which, with a halfpenny roll, might form a dinner to any one
whose imagination was so strong as to enable him to believe he had had
enough. Any one who was the fortunate possessor of threepence, could,
by doubling the order, really feel his appetite appeased. Then for
those whose poverty was extreme, or appetite unusually small, a little
cup of tea could be supplied for one halfpenny--and a good cup of tea
too, not particularly strong, it is true, but with a fair average
allowance of milk and sugar.
"Waiter," cried Haco Barepoles in a voice that commanded instant
attention.
"Yessir."
"Soup for two, steaks an' 'taties for ditto to foller."
"Yessir."
"Please, father, I would like a cup of coffee after the soup instead of
a steak. I don't feel very hungry."
"All right, lass. Waiter, knock off one o' the steaks an' clap a cup o'
coffee in its place."
"Yessir. Roll with it, Miss?"
"Of course," said Haco.
"Butter, Miss?"
"Sartinly. An' double allowance o' milk an' sugar," replied the
skipper. "S'pose you han't got cream?"
"No sir."
"Never mind. Look alive now, lad. Come, Susan, here's a box with only
one man in't, we'll--Hallo! shiver my timbers if it ain't--no--it can't
be--Stephen Gaff, eh! or his ghost?"
"Just so," said Stephen, laying down his knife and fork, and shaking
warmly the hand which Haco stretched across the table to him; "I'm
always turnin' up now an' again like a bad shillin'. How goes life with
'ee, Haco? you don't seem to have multiplied the wrinkles since I last
saw ye."
"Thank 'ee, I'm pretty comf'rable. This is my darter Susan," said Haco,
observing that his friend glanced inquiringly at his fair
companion--"The world always uses me much the same. I find it a
roughish customer, but it finds me a jolly one, an' not easily put out.
When did I see ye last? Let me see,--two years come Christmas. Why,
I've been wrecked three times since then, run down twice, an' drownded
at least half-a-dozen times; but by good luck they always manages to
bring me round--rowsussitate me, as the doctors call it."
"Ay, you've had hard times of it," observed Gaff, finishing his last
morsel of meat, and proceeding to scrape up the remains of gravy and
potato with his knife; "I've bin wrecked myself sin' we last met, but
only once, and that warn't long ago, just the last gale. You coasters
are worse off than we are. Commend me to blue water, and plenty o'
sea-room."
"I believe you, my boy," responded the skipper. "There's nothin' like a
good offing an' a tight ship. We stand but a poor chance as we go
creepin' 'long shore in them rotten tubs, that are well named
`Coal-Coffins.' Why, if it comes on thick squally weather or a gale
when yer dodgin' off an' on, the `Coal-Coffins' go down by dozens.
Mayhap at the first burst o' the gale you're hove on your beam-ends, an'
away go the masts, leavin' ye to drift ashore or sink; or p'raps you're
sharp enough to get in sail, and have all snug, when, just as ye're
weatherin' a headland, away goes the sheet o' the jib, jib's blowed to
ribbons, an' afore ye know where ye are, `breakers on the lee bow!' is
the cry. Another gust, an' the rotten foretops'l's blow'd away,
carryin' the fore-topmast by the board, which, of course, takes the
jib-boom along with it, if it an't gone before. Then it's `stand by to
let go the anchor.' `Let go!' `Ay, ay, sir.' Down it goes, an' the
`Coffin's' brought up sharp; not a moment too soon, mayhap, for ten to
one but you see an' hear the breakers, roarin' like mad, thirty yards or
so astern. It may be good holdin' ground, but what o' that?--the
anchor's an old 'un, or too small; the fluke gives way, and ye're
adrift; or the cable's too small, and can't stand the strain, so you let
go both anchors, an' ye'd let go a dozen more if ye had 'em for dear
life; but it's o' no use. First one an' then the other parts; the stern
is crushed in a'most afore ye can think, an' in two minutes more, if not
less, it's all up with ye, unless there's a lifeboat at hand."
"Ah! pity there's not more of 'em on the coast," said Gaff.
"True," rejoined Haco, "many a poor feller's saved every year by them
blessed boats, as would otherwise have gone to the bottom, an' left
widder and childer to weep for him, an' be a burden, more or less, on
the country."
The waiter appeared at this point in the conversation with the soup, so
Haco devoted himself to dinner, while Gaff ordered a plate of bread and
cheese extra in order to keep him company. For some minutes they all
ate in silence. Then Haco, during the interval between the courses,
informed Gaff that he expected to return to the port of London in a day
or two; whereupon Gaff said that he just happened to be lookin' out for
a ship goin' there, as he had business to do in the great city, and
offered to work his way. The skipper readily promised to ship him as an
extra hand, if the owner chose to send the `Coffin' to sea without
repairs, "which," observed Haco, "is not unlikely, for he's a
close-fisted customer."
"Who is he?" inquired Gaff.
"Stuart of Seaside Villa," said Haco.
"Ha! he _is_ a tough un," observed Gaff, with a significant grin. "I
knows him well. He don't much care riskin' fellers' lives, though I
never heard of him riskin' his own."
"He'd very near to answer for mine this voyage," said Haco, as well as
he could through a mouthful of steak and potato.
"How was that?"
"This is how it was," answered the skipper, bolting the mouthful, "you
see the `Coffin's' not in a fit state for sea; she's leaky all over, an'
there's a plank under the starboard quarter, just abaft the cabin
skylight, that has fairly struck work, caulk it and pitch it how you
please, it won't keep out the sea no longer, so when we was about to
take in cargo, I wrote to Mr Stuart tellin' him of it, an' advisin'
repairs, but he wrote back, sayin' it was very awk'ard at this time to
delay that cargo, an' askin' if I couldn't work the pumps as I had used
to do, besides hintin' that he thought I must be gettin' timid as I grew
old! You may be sure I didn't think twice. Got the cargo aboard; up
sail an' away.
"Well, it was blowin' a stiff nor'-wester when we got away, an' we
couldn't have beat into port again if our lives depended on it. So I
calls the crew aft, an' told 'em how the matter stood. `Now, lads,'
says I, `to speak plain English, the sloop is sinkin' so you had as well
turn to an' pump for yer lives, an' I'll show ye how.' With that I off
coat an' set to work, an' took my turn the whole voyage. But it was
touch an' go with us. We nigh sank in the harbour here, an' I had to
run her ashore to perwent her goin' down in deep water. They're
patchin' up the rotten plank at this minute, an' if old Stuart won't go
in for a general overhaul, we'll be ready for sea in a day or two, and
you'll have the pleasure o' navigatin' a lot o' wrecked Roosians to
London. Now, waiter, ahoy!--"
"Yessir."
"Fetch me a pannikin o' tea, for it's dry work tellin' a anikdot. You
see, Gaff, I'm a reg'lar teetotaller--never go the length o' coffee even
without a doctor's surtificate. Another cup, Susan?"
"No thank 'ee, father, I couldn't."
"Werry good. Now, Gaff, what's the 'ticklers o' _your_ case. Time
about's fair play, you know."
Gaff, feeling a gush of confidence come over him, and having ascertained
that, in regard to secrecy, Susan was as "safe as the bank," related the
circumstances of the wreck, and his having left Emmie at her
grandfather's villa; the relation of all which caused Haco Barepoles to
give vent to a series of low grunts and whistles, expressive of great
surprise.
"Now," said Gaff in conclusion, "there's a land-shark, (by which I means
a lawyer), in London what writes to me that there's somethin' I'll hear
of to my advantage if I calls on him."
"Don't go," said Haco, stoutly, as he struck the table with his fist,
causing the crockery to rattle again; "take the advice of an old friend,
an' _don't go_. If you do, he'll _do_ you."
"Thank'ee, an' I'd foller yer advice, but I happens to know this
land-shark. He's an old acquaintance, an' I can trust him."
"Oh, that alters the case--well?"
"Well, but before I go," continued Gaff, "I wants to write a letter to
old Stuart to warn him to look arter Emmie; a very partikler letter."
"Ay, how much partikler a one?" inquired Haco.
"A hambigoo-ous one," replied his friend.
"A ham--what?" said Haco interrogatively.
"A ham-big-oo-ous one."
"What sort of a one may that be, mate?"
"Well," said Gaff, knitting his heavy brows, and assuming altogether a
learned aspect, "it's a one that you can't make head nor tail of nohow;
one as'll read a'rnost as well back'ard as for'ard, an' yet has got a
smack o' somethin' mysterious in it, w'ich shows, so to speak, to what
pint o' the compass your steerin' for--d'ye see?"
"H'm--rather hazy ahead," answered the skipper with a deeply sagacious
look; "a difficult letter to write in my opinion. How d'ye mean to do
it?"
"Don't mean to do it at all. Couldn't do it to save my life; but I'll
get a clerk to do it for me, a smart young clerk too; _you_ know who I
mean."
"Ay, who'll it be? I'll never guess; never guessed a guess in my life."
"You know my darter Tottie?"
"What, blue-eyed Tottie? oh, yer jokin'!"
"Not a bit. That child's a parfec' cooriosity of intelligence. She can
write and read most wonderful for her age."
"But she'll never be able to do the ham--what d'ye call it?" suggested
Haco.
"Of course not; she's too young for that, but the wife'll do that.
You've no notion how powerful hambigoo-ous she is now an' again. We'll
manage it amongst us. Tottie can write like a parson, my wife can read,
though she can't write, an'll see that it's all c'rect, specially the
spellin' an' the makin' of it hambigoo-ous; an' I'll supply the idees,
the notions like, an' superintend, so to speak, an' we'll make little
Billy stand by wi' the blottin'-paper, just to keep him out o'
mischief."
Haco regarded his friend with deepening admiration. The idea of
producing a "hambigoo-ous" letter by such an elaborate family
combination, in which each should supply his co-labourer's deficiency,
was quite new and exceedingly interesting to him. Suddenly his
countenance became grave, as it occurred to him that there was no call
for such a letter at all, seeing that Kenneth Stuart was sure to do his
best to induce his father to take care of the child. On observing this
to his friend, the latter shook his head.
"I'm not quite sure o' Mister Kenneth," said he, "it's likely that he'll
do the right thing by her, but `like father, like son' is an old
proverb. He may be a chip o' the old block."
"That he is not," interrupted Haco warmly. "I know the lad well. He
takes after his poor mother, and I'm sartin sure ye may trust him."
"Well, I _must_ trust him," said Gaff, "but I've had no experience of
him; so I mean to `make assurance doubly sure,' as the prophet says, if
it wasn't the poet--an' that's why I'll write this letter. If it don't
do no good, it won't do no harm."
"I'm not so sure o' that," said Haco, shaking his head as they rose to
depart, "hows'ever, you know best. Now mind, Susan, not a word o' this
to any one."
Susan promised, and in the course of the evening related the whole
affair to Daniel Horsey "_in confidence_;" her conscience being
apparently relieved by the idea that having told it only in strict
confidence she had not broken her word!
Dan made her promise solemnly that she would tell the tale to no one
else on earth, either in confidence or otherwise, and thus he checked
the stream of gossip as close to its fountain-head as possible.