“Seems to me——” began Larkins, ferociously.
“Two fine strong men, stripped to the waist, hard as nails, knocking each other about for money,” said Mr. Morgan. “They’re never going to fight any more. I made ’em promise they wouldn’t. They’re good friends now; ain’t you, lads?”
With an utter disregard of the feelings of the bystanders the two men shook hands.
“And though I regard fighting with horror,” concluded Mr. Morgan, beaming on them, “I think that, as it was a bargain, you should divide the purse between ’em.”
“They won’t get a farthing of it,” said Mr. Larkins, explosively, “unless you like to give it to ’em out of your own pocket.”
“Me!” said Mr. Morgan, opening his eyes. “Why?”
“Ask yourself,” said Mr. Larkins, pointedly. “I should say if any man ever ’ad thirty-five shillingsworth of sport all to hisself, you have; and, what’s more, you know it, Mr. Peter Morgan.”
The peacemaker sighed, and, turning, led his charges gently away. The crowd watched them as far as the “Three Fishers,” and observing that they detached themselves by force from their guide and friend, crossed the road and followed them in.
FALSE COLOURS
Of course, there is a deal of bullying done at sea at times,” said the night-watchman, thoughtfully. ‘The men call it bullying an’ the officers call it discipline, but it’s the same thing under another name. Still, it’s fair in a way. It gets passed on from one to another. Everybody aboard a’most has got somebody to bully, except, perhaps, the boy; he ’as the worst of it, unless he can manage to get the ship’s cat by itself occasionally.