He laughed as he uttered this little piece of chaff at my expense, the story being now the common property of everybody on board, and I laughed, too, as I ran up the hatchway with my clothes nearly dry again, even drying in the short space of time I had been in the hot atmosphere below, although, goodness knows, they had been wet enough when I had gone down, having had no time or opportunity to shift them after my dip overboard when taking the line to the drifting boat.
On reaching the main deck I met Spokeshave.
He was coming out from the saloon, and from his puffy face and corpulent appearance generally, he looked as if he had been making a haul on the steward’s pantry, although he had not long had his dinner and it was a good way off tea time.
“Hullo!” he cried out on seeing me. “I say, that chap O’Neil is having a fine go of it playing at doctoring. He has got a lot of ugly long knives and saws laid out on the cuddy table and I think he’s going to cut off the chap’s leg!”
“Which chap do you mean?” I asked; “not the colonel?”
“Aye,” said he. “The chap with the moustache and long hair, like Hamlet, you know!”
“My good chap,” said I, “you seem to know a good deal about other chaps, or think you do, but I never heard before of Hamlet having a moustache like a life-guardsman! Irving doesn’t wear one when he takes the part, if I recollect right, my joker. You think yourself mighty knowing!”
“Quite so,” replied Master Spokeshave, using his favourite phrase as usual. “But you don’t call Irving Shakespeare, Haldane, do ye?”
“I don’t know anything of the matter, old boy. I am not so well informed as you are concerning the dramatic world, Spokeshave. I know you’re a regular authority or ‘toffer,’ if you like, on the subject. Don’t you think, however, you’re a bit hard on poor Irving, who, I’ve no doubt, would take a word of advice from you if you spoke kindly to him and without that cruel sarcasm which you’re apt to use?”
The little beggar actually sniggered over this, being of the opinion that I was paying a just tribute to his histrionic acumen and judgement in things theatrical, on which he prided himself on account of his having appeared once behind the footlights in a theatre in Liverpool, as a “super,” I believe, and in a part where he had nothing to say!