“Come now, move on! Can’t do with you creatin’ no bother! Move on, I tell you, if you don’t want me to appre’end you!”
The little man shuffled off, still muttering to himself, and pausing now and again in his zigzag progress along the road to flourish his fists at those contemptuous spars stabbing the sunset. The policeman, catching Anderton’s eye, tapped his forehead significantly.
“Case o’ Dhoolallie tap, as we used to say in Injer,” he observed. “Round ’ere nearly every day, ’e is, carryin’ on same as you saw. Chronic!”
Anderton asked him where the “Altisidora” was berthed. A look—was it of surprise?—flitted across his stolid countenance. Anderton could have sworn he was going to say “O-oh—her!” But he didn’t. He only said, “Right straight a’ead—can’t miss ’er——”
There were quite a number of ships in the dock, of which in those days a fair proportion were still sailing ships—ships from the Baltic with windmills sticking up amidships, Dagoes with brightly painted figureheads and Irish pennants everywhere, Frenchmen with their look of Gallic smartness and their standing rigging picked out in black and white; she was none of these anyway.
Anderton’s eye dwelt longingly on the tall clipper whose spars he had already seen soaring above the sheds. There, now, was the very ship of his dreams! He thought life could hold no higher bliss for a sailorman than to stand upon her poop—to control her, to guide her, to see the whole of her lovely height and grace moving in obedience to his commands. He sighed a little at the thought, as he continued to scan the vista of moored shipping with eyes that hoped and yet feared to find what they sought.
“Right straight ahead.” She couldn’t be far off now—why, his ship must be lying at the very next berth to the beautiful clipper.
But there wasn’t a next berth: the tall beauty was lying in the very corner of the dock. Already the straggle of letters among the gilt scrollwork on her bow had begun to suggest a wild hope he daren’t let himself entertain. But now it wasn’t a hope—it was a certainty! This was his ship—this dream, this queen, this perfect thing among ships! Why, her name was like a song—why hadn’t it struck him before?—and she was like a song ... the loveliest thing, Anderton thought, he had ever seen ... rising up there so proud and stately above them all ... her bare slender skysail poles soaring up, up until the little rosy dapple in the evening sky seemed almost like a flight of tropical birds resting on her spars. She dwarfed everything else in the dock. Anderton had thought his last ship, the ship in which he had served his time, lofty enough; yet now she seemed almost stumpy by comparison.
He climbed the gangway and stepped on board. The steward, a hoarse Cockney with a drooping moustache under a pendulous red nose, and an expression of ludicrous melancholy which would have been worth a fortune to a music-hall artist, came out of his little kennel of a pantry to show him his room, and lingered a while, exuding onions and conversation.
“Nice room, sir, ain’t it? Orl been done right froo.... ’Ard lines on the ovver young feller, weren’t it? Coo! Cargo slings giv’ way when he was right underneaf—a coupler ’underweight bung on top of ’im! Coo! Didn’t it jus’ make a mess of ’im? Not ’arf....”