In a dark day Ropey
wound up his affairs and embarked.
Arriving in Sydney with a small capital, and after a while waxing snug
and comfortable by dint of hard kneading, he took unto himself a
wife; and so far as she was concerned, might then have gone into the
country and retired; for she effectually did his business. In short,
the lady worked him woe in heart and pocket; and in the end, ran off
with his till and his foreman. Ropey went to the sign of the Pipe and
Tankard; got fuddled; and over his fifth pot meditated suicide - an
intention carried out; for the next day he shipped as landsman aboard
the Julia, South Seaman.
The ex-baker would have fared far better, had it not been for his
heart, which was soft and underdone. A kind word made a fool of him;
and hence most of the scrapes he got into. Two or three wags, aware
of his infirmity, used to "draw him out" in conversation whenever the
most crabbed and choleric old seamen were present.
To give an instance. The watch below, just waked from their sleep, are
all at breakfast; and Ropey, in one corner, is disconsolately
partaking of its delicacies. "Now, sailors newly waked are no
cherubs; and therefore not a word is spoken, everybody munching his
biscuit, grim and unshaven. At this juncture an affable-looking
scamp - Flash Jack - crosses the forecastle, tin can in hand, and seats
himself beside the land-lubber.
"Hard fare this, Ropey," he begins; "hard enough, too, for them that's
known better and lived in Lun'nun. I say now, Ropey, s'poaing you
were back to Holborn this morning, what would you have for breakfast,
eh?"
"Have for breakfast!" cried Ropey in a rapture. "Don't speak of it!"
"What ails that fellow?" here growled an old sea-bear, turning round
savagely.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," said Jack; and then, leaning over to Rope
Yarn, he bade him go on, but speak lower.
"Well, then," said he, in a smuggled tone, his eyes lighting up like
two lanterns, "well, then, I'd go to Mother Moll's that makes the
great muffins: I'd go there, you know, and cock my foot on the 'ob,
and call for a noggin o' somethink to begin with."
"What then, Ropey?"
"Why then, Flashy," continued the poor victim, unconsciously warming
with his theme: "why then, I'd draw my chair up and call for Betty,
the gal wot tends to customers. Betty, my dear, says I, you looks
charmin' this mornin'; give me a nice rasher of bacon and h'eggs,
Betty my love; and I wants a pint of h'ale, and three nice h'ot
muffins and butter - and a slice of Cheshire; and Betty, I wants - "
"A shark-steak, and be hanged to you!" roared Black Dan, with an oath.
Whereupon, dragged over the chests, the ill-starred fellow is
pummelled on deck.
