"Oh, well, y'see, mam, my mother was a pro-dancer in her young days and I caught it from 'er, I expect."
"That's very interesting. Tell me about it, Mr. Jones." She began to pace the deck.
Jones fell in step, surreptitiously mopping his neck with his handkerchief. This was the moment of his life. During other cruises he had often had pleasant chats with Franklin and his friends who found him and his cockney accent rather amusing, but he had never hoped to do more than pass the time of day with this proud girl. He was on his best Sunday behavior.
"Me father went down to the sea in ships, the same as all me family," he said, with what he believed to be a certain amount of style. "At the time he met mother he was skipper of the Princess Mary, carryin' passengers from London to Margit, a seaside resort on the Kent coast of the old country."
"I know it," said Beatrix, who remembered without the least pleasure its ugly pier, stiff promenade, and heterogeneous mass of trippers.
"Is that so, mam? Ah, some little old place! I give you my word. Well, dad catches sight of mother sunnin' herself on deck and as he use ter say, she stopped 'is watch, which is slang fer love at first glance. Bein' skipper and all like that naturally she was a bit bucked up when he spoke and asked if she was comfortable. That began it and instead of stayin' at Margit she made the return trip the next day, 'ad a fish supper along of father at the Anchor Hotel and was spliced up before the end of the week."
"Very romantic," said Beatrix, "and what then?"
"Well," said Jones, with a little laugh, "then there was me, the first of nine, and mother give up 'er terpsichorean career, so ter speak."
"But she taught you all to dance?"
"Yes, mam, and the last time I saw the old man was at a concert in aid of the orphans of seamen at Barking Creek and me and me brothers and sisters, with mother in the middle, give an exhibition of fancy dancin' and I wish you could 'ave seen the old man's face. He died shortly after that."