Dick Bird.
“GAMMON!” I said to him. “I’m too old a bird to be caught with that kind of chaff, my fine fellow. Try it on with the chaplain.”
He gave a kind of wince, just as if I’d pricked him with a pin; and as his eyes puckered up, he ran his thin hand over his damp, white forehead, and made believe to pass his fingers through his hair.
But he didn’t, for it was cut as short as a Frenchman’s, and then he gave a bit of a sigh.
“Hah!” I said, “that’s very well done, Number Ninety-seven. Neat bit of play-acting. Pity you didn’t take to the stage; but it won’t do for me, so don’t try it on again. I’ve met too many of your kidney, since I’ve had to do with this sort of work.”
“I beg your pardon. I’m sorry I asked you, Mr. Rowan.”
“Then hold your tongue,” I said sourly. “Don’t make worse of it. I know you, my lad. You’re perfectly innocent, of course; the jury were a set of lunatics; and the judge who sentenced you to seven years was an old fool. You’re one of the good sort of young men, who wants to improve himself, and likes reading and writing and chucking texts about.”
He stood there before me with his face working, and that made me worse than ever; for I believe I hated that young fellow then for being so patient and good-looking, and for never giving me a bit of trouble since he’d been on board.
Perhaps it was temper, too, consequent on my liver being out of order, for the heat down south was terrible, and I’d wished myself back in England over and over again.
It was an unlucky time for him to ask me to be breaking the rules and supplying him with books and paper, and I flew out at him and let him have a bit of my mind, as a lesson to keep him quiet and to check some more of the gang, for we had about as ugly a lot taking out there to Sydney, as ever left England—for the benefit of their country, and to be inflicted upon the colonists of New South Wales.