“Mornin’, sir,” said old Dick, pulling at his forelock, and giving one leg a kick out behind.
“Morning, Dick. Don’t you wish you were along with the hunting-party?”
Old Dick walked to the side, sprinkled the water with a little tobacco juice, and came back.
“That’s the same colour as them Malay chaps, sir,” he said, “nasty dirty beggars.”
“Dirty, Dick? Why they are always bathing and swimming.”
“Yes,” said Dick in a tone of disgust, “but they never use no soap.”
“Well, what of that?” said Bob. “You don’t suppose that makes any difference?”
“Makes no difference?” said the old sailor; “why it makes all the difference, sir. When I was a young ’un, my old mother used to lather the yaller soap over my young head till it looked like a yeast tub in a baker’s cellar. Lor’ a mussy! the way she used to shove the soap in my eyes and ears and work her fingers round in ’em, was a startler. She’d wash, and scrub, and rasp away, and then swab me dry with a rough towel—and it was a rough ’un, mind yer—till I shone again. Why, I was as white as a lily where I wasn’t pink; and a young lady as come to stay at the squire’s, down in our parts, blessed if she didn’t put me in a picter she was painting, and call me a village beauty. It’s the soap as does it, and a rale love of cleanliness. Bah, look at ’em! They’re just about the colour o’ gingerbread; while look at me!”
Bob looked at the old fellow searchingly, to see if he was joking, and then finding that he was perfectly sincere, the middy burst into a hearty roar of laughter.
For long years of exposure to sun and storm had burned and stained Dick into a mahogany brown, warmed up with red of the richest crimson. In fact, a Malay had rather the advantage of him in point of colour.