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There is a sense in which it is right to say that the founder of that firm, at a time when American craft like the Boston clippers of Donald McKay were in a fair way to leave the Red Ensign far astern, declared that Blackwall had to beat those American flyers, and did it.
As the extremity brought other people abroad, it drove me home, and except having made my voyage down to Blackwall and Greenwich, as I have related, which was an excursion, I kept afterwards very much within doors, as I had for about a fortnight before.
The firm of S. Pearson and Son, Limited, of London, England, submitted a proposal for building the tunnels by the shield method, on a modification of the percentage basis, and as this firm had built the Blackwall tunnel within the estimates of cost and was the only bidder having such an experience and record in work in any way similar to the East River tunnels, negotiations were continued between that firm and the railroad company.
At Woolwich I did much business, taking an account of the state of the ships there under hand, thence to Blackwall, and did the like for two ships we have repairing there, and then to Deptford and did the like there, and so home. Captain Perriman with me from Deptford, telling me many particulars how the King's business is ill ordered, and indeed so they are, God knows!
Fortunately the proposal was not carried out; probably neither Harriet nor Mary desired the other's company, and Shelley was saved the ridicule, or worse, of this arrangement. On leaving the vessel at Gravesend, they engaged a boatman to take them up the Thames to Blackwall, where they had to take a coach, and the boatman with them, to drive about London in search of money to pay him.
The most astounding paragraphs used to appear in the Pall Mall Gazette, regarding the annual dinner at Blackwall, which the directors gave, and to which he, and George, and I, as friends of the court, were invited. What orations were uttered, what flowing bumpers emptied in the praise of this great Company; what quantities of turtle and punch did Fred devour at its expense!
When the hour of luncheon arrived no thought of food was in the lad's head, but, burying himself in the back parlour of a little Blackwall public-house, he called for pen, ink, and paper, and proceeded to indite a letter to his sweetheart.
"Ah," said the count, "that has to be considered." "Yes," the visitor assented, "that has to be considered. I'm for having everything above-board. It ain't easy to handle the contrabands of war at a time like this, when every heraldic bird and beast in Europe is on his hind-legs and looking nine ways for Sundays. If Captain Fyffe likes to come down with me to Blackwall I can show him something.
Much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards Bow; for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infection to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall to the stairs which are there for landing or taking water.
He had not got his commissionaire's uniform on, and I did not know he was one till I met him a month or so later in the Strand. When we got to Blackwall the music struck up and people began to dance. I never saw a man dance so much in my life. He did not miss a dance all the way to Clacton, nor all the way back again, and when not dancing he was flirting and cracking jokes.
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