There, for example, was Trouble. He appeared one glorious golden morn as we lay at anchor off St. John, like Aphrodite rising from the sea, his scanty garments dripping with brine; for, being both boatless and penniless, he had used nature’s gifts to win his way from shore to ship like the amphibious creature he proved to be. But, aside from the unexpected manner of his appearance, nothing could have resembled the goddess of the sea less. In fact, he was unquestionably the ugliest and most repulsive representative of the genus Homo and the species Sapiens that I have ever gazed upon—bony and big, with gorilla-like arms and a face so broad and forehead so low that his head appeared to have been forced out of shape by hydraulic pressure, while his natural absence of human-like features had been enhanced by some accident which had deprived him of even the semblance of a nose. There, above his immense mouth, were two huge round holes which, when he grinned,—as he constantly [[17]]did,—stretched into slits that seemed ever on the point of meeting his ears and literally severing his black face into upper and lower hemispheres.
Like a prize bull-pup, he was so extravagantly ugly that he actually was fascinating, and not until he spoke could I take my eyes from him. And his first words were almost as astounding and unexpected as his appearance:
“Ah’m beggin’ o’ yo’ pawdon, Boss, for mah audacity an’ assumption o’ de manner o’ mah absence o’ dignification for precip’tately discommodin’ yo’, but Ah’d like for to propoun’ de interrogation ef yo’ can absorbinate mah sarvices for a member o’ de crew, sir, for to circumnavigate de islan’s, sir.”
Was I dreaming, or had the climate affected my brain? I literally gasped.
But the next instant I had recovered myself, for I knew that this noseless apparition with his wide mouth filled with long words could have originated in but one locality in all the islands, Antigua, whose dusky inhabitants seem to pride themselves upon the amplitude of the words they can command, regardless of their meaning or aptness.
“What’s your name, and what can you do?” I [[18]]asked, more as a formality than anything else, for I never dreamed of taking this creature on.
The noseless negro scratched his head and wiggled his bare toes.
“Ah was christened wi’ de cognomen o’ Henry Francis William Nelson Wellington Shand, sir,” he replied; and then, as an afterthought, “but Ah’m most usually designated by de name o’ Trouble, sir.”
“Trouble!” I exclaimed.
“Yaas, sir,” responded the grinning negro, instantly. “Thank yo’ sir, for mekkin’ acceptance o’ mah sarvices, sir. Ah’ll endeavor for to conduc’ mahself wif circumspection an’ implicitness. Ah’s a sailor, sir, an’ Ah’m not expandulatin’ buncomb when Ah takes upon mahself de assumptiveness o’ de assertion, sir.”