“My nyme’s Adams,” mumbled that worthy in humble tones.
“And my name is Jonathan Canton Solomon Clensy,” said the young Englishman, in a voice which intimated that he too could call himself names.
For a moment the big man surveyed Clensy with a glance of admiration, then he yelled out, “Solomon Clensy and Isaac Adams, I’ve cottoned to ye both, so I’ll see more of ye both in the morning.” The next moment he had tucked his immense silken scarf about his throat, and placing two huge, wonderfully white feet over the bunk’s side, settled himself for sleep.
When Clensy and Adams awoke in the morning the new-comer was already up and dressed.
“God damn it, rise and shine, lying in bed, ye lazy loafers,” he yelled.
They lifted their tired heads and gazed vacantly on the boisterous disturber of their late slumber. For a moment a look of resentment over the man’s impertinent manner leapt into Adams’s eye. Clensy also gave Biglow a look which plainly said, “Who the devil are you that you have the cheek to order us to rise?” But when Bartholomew Biglow laid his massive hand on his velvet waistcoat and burst into a song that told of the horn of the hunters on the English hills, of grey dawns and the skylark’s melodious trills to the sunrise, Clensy and Adams rose, and, looking rather sheepish, commenced to dress. Then Biglow took them both into the big dining-room where lodgers assembled for their meals, and treated them both to a glorious breakfast.
“Get it down ye!” he yelled, as Adams and Clensy munched their toast and poached eggs and bacon. Adams nudged Clensy in the ribs, and chuckled over their sudden luck. After breakfast, the three man went outside their lodging shanty and stood under the shading mahogany trees near Selle Place. Then Samuel Biglow, for such we will call him, told Clensy and his comrade, that though he had been the paramour of queens and the confidant of kings, he reckoned he was well off to have met such a one as Adams. Adams took the big man’s hand and said in almost respectful tones, “Same ter you, Myster Samuel Bartholomew Biglow.” Then Samuel tendered them his credentials in the shape of voluminous verbal reminiscences, telling them of mighty deeds he had performed. If the man’s own accounts could be relied upon, he had been a wonder in his time.
Then Samuel listened to Adams, for that worthy also started to blow his own trumpet. Samuel Biglow bent his giant form and roared with laughter as he listened. Then Adams said he was “a man of honour,” that he would “sooner die than do unto another that which he would not like to be done to him.”
“So, so!” murmured Samuel Biglow soothingly, as he gave Adams a kindly, mother-like look, which plainly told Clensy, who thoroughly enjoyed the play, that he, Samuel, didn’t believe one word that the sailorman said, and that he was doubtlessly as big a rogue as himself. “Ye’ve got honesty written on yer mug!” he said, and Adams felt pleased.
The fact is, that circumstances were running as near dire disaster as could possibly be when two men like Samuel Biglow and Adams met in Hayti, where catastrophes were of hourly occurrence. And it can only be put down to extraordinary good luck that Royal Clensy never got his head into at least a noose of difficulties through associating with such characters. However, let it be said, that all that happened afterwards was not the fault of either Samuel Biglow or Adams; if anything, Samuel Biglow was Royal Clensy’s saviour when the hour arrived, and they had to flee, the three of them, from Hayti.