Scholar wondered if he had given some offence. Ignorant of how to repel in this society in which he found himself, he might also, even in sitting down in response to Mike's invitation, ignorantly have transgressed some usage of courtesy in this sphere. Next moment Mike explained.
"When I see the way the fellers on this ship go cadgin' for tobacco it gives me a pain." He shifted his position slightly, as if he really felt a physical pain. "I would think shame to keep on axing a man day after day—many times a day—'Have you got any chewing? Have you got any smoking?'"
"That's all right," said Scholar. "You didn't ask me—I offered to you."
"Yes, yes, I know; but I said to meself: 'Thim fellers has no daycency. I'll do without chewings and smokings until I get to Liverpool.' No, Scholar, thank you kindly—I'll go wanting it. It has too much hold upon me as it is."
Scholar did not press.
CHAPTER XVI
Now there began to be signs of how the cattlemen would wander off together when they came to land again. Understandings seemed to be arrived at between threes and fours and half-dozens. It was not exactly cliquishness—it was more a case of "birds of a feather"—No, that simile is bad, as are most ready-made proverbs. Not their outward parts, their mere feathers, but their inner parts arranged the groupings. The snarling was all over; drink, and the effects of drink, were old stories. One or two men, of course, were still left alone by all, men so different as the Man with the Hat and the Man with the Specs. Frenchy, or Pierre, his tobacco nearly done, and his complaisance in giving it away in a like state, was now discarded by some of the former spongers, but not by all. Probably those who had been interested in him, as well as sponging upon him, were the ones who now besought him to sing a French song, or to tell them what France looked like.
The feeding and watering were by this time matters of routine, wakening at four a habit. The cabin was almost tenantless, only the cold-blooded, or those children of the slums who felt out of their element unless they slept in rancid air, turned in there. Among the diminishing hay near the hatches—all open again—or on the upper deck, around the smoke-stack, and between the sheep-pens, most of the men slept, snatching a nap during the day when the cattle did not call them, sleeping there at night until only the extreme cold drove them down, with short gasps, from the windy deck to the asthmatical cabin. It was, indeed, easier to tolerate the cabin by day than by late night, for by day, and early in the morning, there was some tobacco smoke—not much now, to be sure—and the companion was open. At night the tobacco smoke soon ceased to combat with the ammonia fumes as the men slept, and some of the cold-blooded were sure to mount up and shut the companion-door before turning in, making the cabin's atmosphere more stifling still.
They began to talk of reaching Liverpool, of what they would do there, to ask each other: "You coming back on her?" Cockney and Michael exchanged friendly speech again. It is doubtful which started, but they were again conversing. The Inquisitive One begged Frenchy to "come with us," indicating the group round him; but Pierre explained that he was going home. One told another about the loss of Frenchy's valise, and Mike's recovery of it, as he might tell of the incident on another ship one day if Frenchmen, or valises, were mentioned. Many of the men fell to rubbing their chins, and announcing that they would be the better of a shave. They asked each other: "Have you a razor?" Frenchy taking warning by the cadging of tobacco that left him smokeless now, pretended that he didn't know what "razor" meant, was unusually dense to signs, could not be got to understand of what they talked. Somebody commented that he must have a shave, that they all should shave, looked too tough, that the day after to-morrow, perhaps, they would be in Liverpool, and if they went ashore like this they'd be taken for cadgers by everybody.