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"But it ain't a fabrication. I found I couldn't invent anything with the proper ring of truth about it; so, the evening before the disclosure, when Jack the Shellback was in the store getting some things to take out with him, I asked him what was the most blackguardly prank he ever got off with; and that was the yarn he told me. Of course, I altered it a bit to suit you." "And Mrs.
'Hold on a minute, said he, 'you old shellback. I've proved to you that I can write; and I've proved to you that I have fought, and now here I'll prove to you that I can sail. If writing, fighting, and sailing don't fit me adequately to report any little disturbances your antiquated washboiler may blunder into, I'll go to raising cabbages. With that he presented a master's certificate!
"By the way," he added, "I didn't see you when I came in last night. I hope I didn't disturb either of you. No? That's right; if I ever make a noise coming in late, shoot me at sight, please. You took the powder, Miss Blyth? and slept well? Hurrah! Well, I was going to say, I had a rather amusing time at Shellback."
The typewriter-sailor was more at home here than on board the ship, in utter contrast to Rolfe; and Barry grinned perforce at the formidable armament he had strapped about his body. He looked the part of a fiction trader, with pen behind his ear, big cheroot in his teeth, and two mighty revolvers in holsters at his waist. "Ship ahoy, me tarry shellback!" he shouted as Barry entered.
"So, as soon as he dives down the companion to take the time of the chronometer below, the old lady goes up to the helmsman all bridling up and curtseying down, the same as a ship in a heavy head sea. "`Good-morning, Mr Sailor, says she. "`Mornin', says the man at the wheel, who was a rough old shellback, and didn't waste his words like Pat Doolan here.
That kind of shakes the starch out of the brotherly love and New Jerusalem business. You go through the mill, and you'll have a bigger grudge against every old shellback that dirties his plate in the three oceans than the Bank of California could settle up. No; it has an ugly look to it, but the only way to run a ship is to make yourself a terror."
"Tuesday? It was Sunday when it happened. Did you have a hand in picking me up? Who was it?" "Not me," I said. "I found you on the road out here in a dazed state of mind, and you knew nothing whatever of ships or of sailors, though I took you for a shellback by your walk." "That's right. You can always spot one. You're a sailor, I can see, and an American, too. But what are you doing here?
Thus we progressed the length of their commercial centre, the incidents varying but little. "Hello, Sour-dough, you old shellback! When did you come off the trail?" "Just got in. My lands! but it's good to be back. Billy, shake hands with my friend Colonel Ruggles." I mean to say, the persons were not all named "Billy," that being used only by way of illustration.
This arbitrary departure in dates will give you another glimpse of Alf Jones. Also, the peculiar scythe-sweep of my style of narrative will take in a rencontre with another person, to whom, in your helpless state as a reader, you have already been introduced. And if you take it not patiently, the more is your mettle. Wilcannia shower. Jack the Shellback. To Runnymede. Tom Armstrong and mate.
He could be heard splashing; a sea came on board with a thump. "He's got his bath already," remarked a grim shellback. "Aye, aye!" grunted others. Then, after a long silence, Wamibo made strange noises. "Hallo, what's up with you?" said some one grumpily. "He says he would have gone for Davy," explained Archie, who was the Finn's interpreter generally.
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