'I've bin spendin' a good bit lately one way an' another,' Martin explained, removing a half-used cigarette from the interior of his cap and lighting it.
Joshua grinned. He knew well enough that an ordinary seaman's pay of one shilling and threepence per diem, less various necessary personal expenses, did not go far when one was 'walking out' with a young lady.
Pincher loved his Emmeline very dearly, and Emmeline, she said, had come to love him; but he was bound to admit she was rather an expensive luxury. Moreover, he was far too proud to allow her to pay her share of their amusements when he was with her, which was pretty often. So, what with picture-palaces and visits to confectioners' shops, his eight-and-ninepence a week went nowhere. He had even been forced to borrow from his shipmates—always a difficult matter.
Then there had been the affair of the locket, over which Pincher felt he had been badly done. He had had his photograph taken, and had had it mounted in a rolled-gold ornament of chaste design for which he had paid the sum of seven shillings and sixpence, and this he had presented to Emmeline to be worn round her neck in place of the one which already hung there. He had imagined that this nine-carat gold case hid the features of some other admirer. It did nothing of the kind. Its interior, when he was allowed to investigate it personally, contained nothing but a faithful likeness of the girl's father—top-hat, side-whiskers, and all. Emmeline seemed rather amused. Pincher never quite got over it.
'Carn't yer get a hadvance o' money from th' paybob?'[ [22] Joshua suggested. "E ain't a bad old bloke so long as yer goes ter 'im wi' a yarn o' bein' desperate 'ard up, an' yer pore ole farther's 'ome bein' sold up, an' 'im an' yer ma an' the kids goin' ter th' work'ouse.'
'I've tried that,' Pincher answered glumly. 'Leastways, orl excep' the yarn wot yer said. 'E simply tells me I'm in debt ter the Crown 'cos o' clothes an' other gear wot I've bought, an' that 'e carn't do nothink.'
'I calls it a houtrage!' said Billings sympathetically, looking very solemn. 'The way they bleeds us pore matloes is enuf—enuf—I carn't think o' wot I wus goin' ter say,' he added lamely; 'but it's abart time somethin' wus done. S'welp me, it is!'
'An' abart time you pays back that two bob wot you borrowed off me,' Pincher chipped in, remembering the debt.
'Two bob!' cried Joshua, screwing up his face and trying hard to appear as if he didn't know what Pincher was driving at. 'Wot two bob?'
'Th' two bob I lends yer the night yer took Missis Figgins along ter th' pictures. You knows orl abart it.'