Never had old Joe been so happy in all his life. Of a night he'd bring up in some secure nook, and after having seen everything all safe, he'd go below with Peter Plum, and in the cosy interior of the little cabin, whose atmosphere was rendered speedily fragrant with the perfume of rum punch, which Joe, whilst in the West Indies, had learnt the art of brewing to perfection, the two sailors would sit smoking their yards of pipe-clay whilst they discoursed on the past, one incident recalling another, one briny recollection prompting an even salter memory, until their eyes grew moist and their vision dim in their balls of sight; whereupon they would turn in and make the little ship vocal with their noses.
It happened, according to the usual methods of time, that an Easter Monday came round, which, as we know, was the joyful anniversary of the death of the wife of the retired tailor, Sloper, whose villa, called Labour's Retreat, stood upon the banks of the Thames near Erith. To fitly celebrate this happy day Mr. Sloper had invited three friends to dine with him. It was in the year 1851, when the class of society in which Mr. Sloper belonged was not so genteel in its habits as it has since become; in other words, Sloper dined at two o'clock. Had he survived into this age he would not have dreamt of dining at an earlier hour than seven.
His friends were of his own sex. Sloper did not like the ladies. His friends' calling matters not. They did business in the east end of London, and were all three thoroughly respectable tradesmen in a small way, wanting, perhaps, in the muscle and depth of chest and hurricane lungs of Joe Westlake and Peter Plum, but all of them able to pay twenty shillings in the pound, to give good value for prompt cash, and desirous not only of fresh patronage, but determined to a man to merit the continuance of the same.
When Sloper and his friends had dined, and the bottle had circled until, like quicksilver in the eye of a hurricane, the contents had sunk out of sight, the party went on to the lawn to fire off the guns there in completion of the triumphant celebration of the ever-memorable anniversary of Sloper's release.
It was precisely at this hour that the Tom Bowling, with Plum at the helm and Joe Westlake in full rig, marching up and down the quarter-deck, came leisurely rounding down Halfway Reach before a pleasant northerly breeze of wind blowing over the flat, fat levels of Barking. The Tom Bowling, opening Jenningtree Point, ported her helm and floated in all her pride of white canvas and radiant metal and fathom and a half of shining bunting at her masthead into Erith Reach.
Just as she came abreast of Labour's Retreat a gun was fired; the white powder-smoke clouded the tailor's lawn; the thunder of the ordnance smote the ear of Joe Westlake, who, dilating his nostrils and directing his eyes at Sloper's villa, bawled out: "Peter! that's meant for us, my heart! Down hellum! slacken away fore and aft! pipe all hands for action!"
A second gun roared upon the lawn that sloped from the tailor's house; and almost as loud was the shout that Westlake delivered to all hands to look alive and bring the guns to bear. The Tom Bowling was thrown into the wind and brought to a stand abreast of Labour's Retreat; Plum took a turn with the helm and went to help at the guns, and in a few minutes the three of a crew, with Westlake continuously bawling out orders to bear a hand and load again, were actively engaged in firing blank at the enemy on the lawn.
It might have been that Mr. Sloper and his friends were a little tipsy; it might have been that they were irritated by their feu de joie being interrupted and complicated, so to speak, by the cutter's artillery; it is certain that they continued to load and discharge their guns as fast as they could sponge them out; whilst from the river the cutter maintained a rapid fire at Labour's Retreat. In an evil moment, temper getting the better of Sloper's judgment, he loaded one of his pieces with stones, and the gun was so well aimed that on Joe Westlake looking aloft he beheld his beautiful flag of a fathom and a half in holes.
For some moments the old man-of-wars man stood staring up at his wounded flag, idle with wrath and astonishment. He then in a voice of thunder shouted: "Plum—Robins—Tuck! D' ye see what that there fired little tailor's been and done? Why, junk me if he ha' n't shot our colour through! Boys, load with ball; d' ye hear? Suffocate me, but he shall have it back. Quick, my hearts, and go for him."
With ocean alacrity some round shot were got up, a gun was fired point-blank at Labour's Retreat, and down came a chimney-stack, amidst the cheers of the crew of the Tom Bowling.