Yes, there he sits; what a face!—more like a half-worn-out broom, with two clear, sparkling eyes peeping from it, than anything else. A real “low ’un”—and yet his mouth, sensitive-looking, firm as a beautiful woman’s, as though ages back in British history some Roman captain, leader of invading legions, sighted and fell into the arms of a blue-eyed, golden-haired coster-girl, of leafy raiment and limbs of woaded beauty, as she pattered down that primitive Mile End Way.
As Grimes sat there on his tub, he gave them back as good as they gave when they chaffed him. He was no fool. His old grandfather and grandmother kept a pawnbroker’s shop down the Old Kent Road. He seemed to have tender memories of them and his kiddie days.
“Gorblimy, a dear old soul she were. She knewed all about Boyron the poyet; yes, she readed to me the poultry that made me wanter go to sea.”
“Fancy that,” said I, as I looked into those fine, low eyes.
“Yus; and I’m well connected, mate, I am. I had a hunkle on the Karnty Kouncil.” (Here he pulled his trouser-legs up and spat through the open door with mathematical precision.) “Clever bloke ’e was.”
So would Grimes ramble on, telling me of old times, and of his first aspirations to go to sea, in his picturesque style, till I saw, in my imagination, the wrinkled old grandmother staring through her spectacles as the little grimy imp looked up at her and drank in the romance of life.
CHAPTER VI
Tai-o-hae by Night—The Bowels of the Old Hulk—The Figurehead—A Mad Escape—South Sea Grog Shanty Barmen up to date—Men who shave their Beards off—Mrs Ranjo’s Blush—The Potentialities of a Bit of Blue Ribbon—A Picture of the Grog Shanty’s Interior—Pauline appears—Waylao appears—The Wonderful Dance of the Half-caste Girl—The Mixture of Two Races—The Music of a Marquesan Waltz
GRIMES was a blessing in those days; he was something new to me in the way of man so far as my experiences went.