The ex-baker would have fared far better, had it not been for his heart, which was soft and underdone. A kind word made a fool of him; and hence most of the scrapes he got into. Two or three wags, aware of his infirmity, used to “draw him out” in conversation whenever the most crabbed and choleric old seamen were present.
To give an instance. The watch below, just waked from their sleep, are all at breakfast; and Ropey, in one corner, is disconsolately partaking of its delicacies. “Now, sailors newly waked are no cherubs; and therefore not a word is spoken, everybody munching his biscuit, grim and unshaven. At this juncture an affable-looking scamp—Flash Jack—crosses the forecastle, tin can in hand, and seats himself beside the land-lubber.
“Hard fare this, Ropey,” he begins; “hard enough, too, for them that’s known better and lived in Lun’nun. I say now, Ropey, s’posing you were back to Holborn this morning, what would you have for breakfast, eh?”
“Have for breakfast!” cried Ropey in a rapture. “Don’t speak of it!”
“What ails that fellow?” here growled an old sea-bear, turning round savagely.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” said Jack; and then, leaning over to Rope Yarn, he bade him go on, but speak lower.
“Well, then,” said he, in a smuggled tone, his eyes lighting up like two lanterns, “well, then, I’d go to Mother Moll’s that makes the great muffins: I’d go there, you know, and cock my foot on the ’ob, and call for a noggin o’ somethink to begin with.”
“What then, Ropey?”
“Why then, Flashy,” continued the poor victim, unconsciously warming with his theme: “why then, I’d draw my chair up and call for Betty, the gal wot tends to customers. Betty, my dear, says I, you looks charmin’ this mornin’; give me a nice rasher of bacon and h’eggs, Betty my love; and I wants a pint of h’ale, and three nice h’ot muffins and butter—and a slice of Cheshire; and Betty, I wants—”
“A shark-steak, and be hanged to you!” roared Black Dan, with an oath. Whereupon, dragged over the chests, the ill-starred fellow is pummelled on deck.