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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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under hatches; but for two year before that, shiver my timbers, the man was starving! He begged, and he stole, and he cut throats, and starved at that, by the powers!” “Well, it ain’t much use, after all,” said the young seaman. “‘Tain’t much use for fools, you may lay to it--that, nor nothing,” cried Silver. “But now, you look here: you’re young, you are, but you’re as smart as paint. I see that when I set my eyes on you, and I’ll talk to you like a man.” You may imagine how I felt when I heard this abominable old rogue addressing another in the very same words of flattery as he had used to myself. I think, if I had been able, that I would have killed him through the barrel. Meantime, he ran on, little supposing he was overheard. “Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, and they risk swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks, and when a cruise is done, why, it’s hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets. Now, the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to sea again in their shirts. But that’s not the course I lay. I puts it all away, some here, some there, and none too much anywheres, by reason of suspicion. I’m fifty, mark you; once back from this cruise, I set up gentleman in earnest. Time enough too, says you. Ah, but I’ve lived easy in the meantime, never denied myself o’ nothing heart desires, and slep’ soft and ate dainty all my days but when at sea. And how did I begin? Before the mast, like you!” “Well,” said the other, “but all the other money’s gone now, ain’t it? You daren’t show face in Bristol after this.” “Why, where might you suppose it was?” asked Silver derisively. |
