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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
the Scandinavian.
"Thank you, Mr. Yonson," I said; "but dont you think your measures
were rather heroic?"
It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather than
of my words, that he held up his palm for inspection. It was
remarkably calloused. I passed my hand over the horny projections,
and my teeth went on edge once more from the horrible rasping
sensation produced.
"My name is Johnson, not Yonson," he said, in very good, though
slow, English, with no more than a shade of accent to it.
There was mild protest in his pale blue eyes, and withal a timid
frankness and manliness that quite won me to him.
"Thank you, Mr. Johnson," I corrected, and reached out my hand for
his.
He hesitated, awkward and bashful, shifted his weight from one leg
to the other, then blunderingly gripped my hand in a hearty shake.
"Have you any dry clothes I may put on?" I asked the cook.
"Yes, sir," he answered, with cheerful alacrity. "Ill run down
an tyke a look over my kit, if youve no objections, sir, to
wearin my things."
He dived out of the galley door, or glided rather, with a swiftness
and smoothness of gait that struck me as being not so much cat-like
as oily. In fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later to
learn, was probably the most salient expression of his personality.
"And where am I?" I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, to be
one of the sailors. "What vessel is this, and where is she bound?"
"Off the Farallones, heading about sou-west," he answered, slowly
and methodically, as though groping for his best English, and
rigidly observing the order of my queries. "The schooner Ghost,
bound seal-hunting to Japan."
"And who is the captain? I must see him as soon as I am dressed."
Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. He hesitated while he
groped in his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. "The capn
is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name.
But you better speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. The
mate--"
But he did not finish. The cook had glided in.
"Better sling yer ook out of ere, Yonson," he said. "The old
manll be wantin yer on deck, an this aynt no dy to fall foul
of im."
Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the
cooks shoulder, favouring me with an amazingly solemn and
portentous wink as though to emphasize his interrupted remark and
the need for me to be soft-spoken with the captain.
Hanging over the cooks arm was a loose and crumpled array of evil-
looking and sour-smelling garments.
"They was put awy wet, sir," he vouchsafed explanation. "But
youll ave to make them do till I dry yours out by the fire."
Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, and
aided by the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woollen
undershirt. On the instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from
the harsh contact. He noticed my involuntary twitching and
grimacing, and smirked:
"I only ope yer dont ever ave to get used to such as that in
this life, cos youve got a bloomin soft skin, that you ave,
more like a lydys than any I know of. I was bloomin well sure
you was a gentleman as soon as I set eyes on yer."
I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress me
this dislike increased. There was something repulsive about his
touch. I shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted. And between
this and the smells arising from various pots boiling and bubbling
on the galley fire, I was in haste to get out into the fresh air.
Further, there was the need of seeing the captain about what
arrangements could be made for getting me ashore.
A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured
with what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a
running and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workmans
brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a
pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully
ten inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg looked as
though the devil had there clutched for the Cockneys soul and
missed the shadow for the substance.
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