It may be very amusing to read about “Kipps” and those commonplace people whom Mr. H.G. Wells describes so cleverly, but to have to live with them in barracks is far from pleasant.
There were shop-assistants, dental mechanics, city clerks, office boys, medical students, and a whole mass of very ordinary, very uninteresting people. There was a fair sprinkling of mining engineers and miners, and these men were more interesting and of a far stronger mental and physical development. They were huge, full-chested, strong-armed men who swore and drank heavily, but were honest and straight.
There were characters here from the docks and from the merchant service, some of whom had surely been created for W.W. Jacobs. One in particular—Joe Smith, a sailor-man (an engine-greaser, I think)—was full of queer yarns and seafaring talk. He was a little man with beady eyes and a huge curled moustache. He walked about quickly, with the seamen's lurch, as I have noticed most seagoing men of the merchant service do.
This man “came up” in bell-bottomed trousers and a pea jacket. He was fond of telling a yarn about a vessel which was carrying a snake in a crate from the West Indies. This snake got into the boiler when they were cleaning out the engine-room.
“The capt'in ses to me, 'Joe.' I ses, 'Yes-sir.' 'Joe,' says 'e, 'wot's to be done?'
“'Why,' ses I, 'thing is ter git this 'ere snake out ag'in!'
“'Jistso,' says the capt'in; 'but 'oo' ter do it?'—'E always left everythink ter me—and I ses, 'Why, sir, it's thiswise, if sobe all the others are afeared, I ain't, or my name's Double Dutch.'
“'Very good, melad,' ses the capt'in, 'I relies on you, Joe.'—'E always did—and would you believe it, I upped an' 'ooked that there great rattlesnake out of the boiler with an old hum-brella!”
There was a clerk who stood six-foot eight who was something of a “knut.” He told me that at home he belonged to a “Lit'ry Society,” and I asked him what books they had and which he liked.
“Books?” he asked. “'Ow d'yow mean?”