The head clerk flashed an enlightening wink toward the second head clerk; but the second clerk, seeming to be less interested than formerly, the wink was flashed over to the stenographer; but as she, too, seemed preoccupied, the head clerk, rather less buoyantly, inquired, "And what did you do to the two coal-passers?"
"For what I did to them—after I came to—I had to jump into the Mersey and swim ashore. British justice, you know. Inflexible!—especially to a foreigner who cracks a couple of domestic skulls."
"And then?"
"English navy."
The head clerk began to flash again. "And what, may I arsk, was wrong—haw, haw!—wrong with the sair-vice?"
The new-comer almost smiled. "The grub, for one thing. My word, the grub! Blow me for a bleedin' Dutchman, but I couldn't go the grub; [pg 177] y'know. An' a man's a man, with a man's 'eart an' feelin's, even if 'e's nowt but a sailor, ain't he now? You're bloody well right 'e is. But I took a fall out of a submarine before I quit. 'Ave you seen 'em—the little black chaps wot goes down an' comes up like bloomin' little poppusses?"
The head clerk unobtrusively relapsed into his every-day speech. "And weren't they exciting enough for you?"
"The one I was in was. But you see, sir, she sunk one d'y an' all 'ands with 'er."
"Evidently you didn't sink with her. Or maybe you're amphibious?"
"Amphibious? Oh, I s'y now, but that's a good one. My word! But you was jokin', wasn't you, sir? Of course you was. No, hi 'appened to be ashore that d'y, sir. A mistike, sir, you see. But such a turn of wit as you 'ave, sir!"