“Dat’s a bery dangerous man,” said the doctor, “a bery biolent, uncontrollabous kin’ of a man, sonny! Ah jus’ done drop mah ol’ pipe in de cabin soup one mawnin’, an’ Ah tell you Ah wuz skeered for mah life. An’ Ah tell you what, bo’—Ah’se skeered o’ dat man when he’s lookin’ ugly, but Ah’se ten times, twenty times, hundred times skeereder when he’s lookin’ pleased.... An’ when he gits dancin’——” And he rolled his woolly head till it nearly fell off his shoulders.
Meanwhile Mr. Samuel Grover was stepping out briskly in the direction of his boarding-house for seamen in the pleasant thoroughfare known as Cormorant Street. The name was a singularly appropriate one, for Mr. Grover and his like had long gorged there upon sailormen. He hummed pleasantly to himself as he walked, and the rapidity with which he twirled his cigar round his large loose mouth indicated to those who knew the man that he was feeling on unusually good terms with himself and the world.
“Now, b’ys,” he cried, rubbing his fat hands together as he surveyed the dozen or so of depressed-looking sailormen who were playing draw poker for Chinese stinkers in the bar of his modest establishment, “now, b’ys, I’ve gotten a real fine ship for the lot o’ ye.”
The old habitués of his place looked at one another with dawning suspicion. They had encountered this air of extravagant geniality before.
“W-w-wot’s name-of-er?” inquired Billy Stutters, so called by reason of a slight impediment in his speech. It never took him less than a minute to get up steam, but as soon as he was under way the words came with a rush, like water from a stopped-up drain whence the obstruction has been suddenly removed.
“The ‘Bride of Abbeydoes,’” said Mr. Grover, “and a damn fine ship too.”
You could have heard a pin drop for a minute or two while his audience digested this news. Ginger Jack, who was an old man-of-war’s man, and as hard a case as any of the King’s bad bargains who ever drifted under the Red Duster, was heard to observe that he warn’t goin’ to sign in no blinkin’ “Abbeydoes,” nor “Abbeydon’t” neither for the matter o’ that. Billy Stutters, after a mighty effort, was understood to second the amendment.
“Ho, you ain’t, ain’t you?” said Mr. Grover with scathing irony. “An’ wot makes your Royal ‘Ighnesses that bloomin’ partic’lar, may I ask?”
“B-b-b-becos-I’ve-bin-in-’er-afore,” said Billy, sulkily, “an’ the sk-k-kipper-kicked-me!”
“Did he so?” commented Mr. Grover facetiously. “I thought maybe you was goin’ to say he kissed you.... Now, look ’ere, b’ys,” he continued, assuming all the powers of persuasion he could muster; “I guess you’ve gotten cold feet about the ‘Bride of Abbeydoes.’ You take it from me, she ain’t so black as what she’s painted. Not by a jugful. I don’t mind admittin’, man to man, Captain Bascomb’s a hard case. And Mister Doyle, well, I reckon he’s another. But they’re all right with a crowd of smart, handy boys like yourselves. You ain’t a bunch o’ greasers or sodbusters from way back that don’t know a deadeye from a fourfold purchase. You’re the sort o’ crowd as a skipper won’t find no fault with, as he’ll be proud to see about his ship. And just to show I’m in earnest, I’m goin’ to sign on in the ‘Bride of Abbeydoes’ myself. Fair an’ square. I’m about doo to run across and see the home-folks in London, England. I’ve a fancy to take a turn at sailorizin’ again. An’ I like a fast ship. Now then, b’ys, is it a go? That’s the style. The drinks are on the house!”