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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
day, and I had just finished putting
the cabin in order, when Wolf Larsen and Thomas Mugridge descended
the companion stairs. Though the cook had a cubby-hole of a state-
room opening off from the cabin, in the cabin itself he had never
dared to linger or to be seen, and he flitted to and fro, once or
twice a day, a timid spectre.
"So you know how to play Nap," Wolf Larsen was saying in a
pleased sort of voice. "I might have guessed an Englishman would
know. I learned it myself in English ships."
Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, so
pleased was he at chumming thus with the captain. The little airs
he put on and the painful striving to assume the easy carriage of a
man born to a dignified place in life would have been sickening had
they not been ludicrous. He quite ignored my presence, though I
credited him with being simply unable to see me. His pale, wishy-
washy eyes were swimming like lazy summer seas, though what
blissful visions they beheld were beyond my imagination.
"Get the cards, Hump," Wolf Larsen ordered, as they took seats at
the table. "And bring out the cigars and the whisky youll find in
my berth."
I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hinting
broadly that there was a mystery about him, that he might be a
gentlemans son gone wrong or something or other; also, that he was
a remittance man and was paid to keep away from England--"pyed
ansomely, sir," was the way he put it; "pyed ansomely to sling
my ook an keep slingin it."
I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsen
frowned, shook his head, and signalled with his hands for me to
bring the tumblers. These he filled two-thirds full with undiluted
whisky--"a gentlemans drink?" quoth Thomas Mugridge,--and they
clinked their glasses to the glorious game of "Nap," lighted
cigars, and fell to shuffling and dealing the cards.
They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets.
They drank whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do
not know whether Wolf Larsen cheated or not,--a thing he was
thoroughly capable of doing,--but he won steadily. The cook made
repeated journeys to his bunk for money. Each time he performed
the journey with greater swagger, but he never brought more than a
few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin, familiar, could hardly see
the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to another journey to
his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsens buttonhole with a greasy
forefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, "I got money, I
got money, I tell yer, an Im a gentlemans son."
Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for
glass, and if anything his glasses were fuller. There was no
change in him. He did not appear even amused at the others
antics.
In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like a
gentleman, the cooks last money was staked on the game--and lost.
Whereupon he leaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsen
looked curiously at him, as though about to probe and vivisect him,
then changed his mind, as from the foregone conclusion that there
was nothing there to probe.
"Hump," he said to me, elaborately polite, "kindly take Mr.
Mugridges arm and help him up on deck. He is not feeling very
well."
"And tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water,"
he added, in a lower tone for my ear alone.
I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning
sailors who had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge was
sleepily spluttering that he was a gentlemans son. But as I
descended the companion stairs to clear the table I heard him
shriek as the first bucket of water struck him.
Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings.
"One hundred and eighty-five dollars even," he said aloud. "Just
as I thought. "The beggar came aboard without a cent."
"And what you have won is mine, sir," I said boldly.
He favoured me with a quizzical smile. "Hump, I have studied some
grammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. Was
mine, you should have said, not is mine."
"It is a question, not of grammar, but of ethics," I answered.
It was possibly a minute The Sea Wolf page 30 The Sea Wolf page 32 |