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Updated: June 14, 2025
On a bench in the bar sat Black Tom, smoking, spitting, scraping his feet on the sanded floor, and looking like a gigantic spider with enormous bald head. At his side was a thin man with a face pitted by smallpox, and a forehead covered with strange protuberances. This was Jonaique Jelly, barber, clock-mender, and Manx patriot.
"'Respected Sir," read Jonaique, "'with pain and sorrow I write these few lines, to tell you of poor Peter Quilliam " "Aw boy veen, boy veen!" broke in Grannie. "'Knowing you were his friend in the old island, and the one he talked of mostly, except the girl " "Boy ve " "Hush, woman." "'He made good money out here, at the diamond mines "
Jonaique Jelly played the clarionet, and John the Widow played the trombone, but the drum was the leading instrument. Pete himself played it. He pounded it, boomed it, thundered it. While he did so, his eyes blazed with rapture. A big heroic soul spoke out of the drum for Pete. With the strap over his shoulders, he did not trouble much about the tune.
Jonaique Jelly sat midway down the table, with a fine scorn on his features, for John the Clerk sat opposite with a fiddle gripped between his knees. The neighbours brought in the joints of beef and mutton, the chickens and the ducks. Cæsar and the parson carved.
He had abundance of all theso at home, but that did not serve his turn. Going to as many shops as might be, he dropped hints everywhere of the purpose to which his purchases were to be put. Finally, he went to the barber's in the market-place and said, "Will you write an address for me, Jonaique?"
'A thief, d'ye hear me? says the Ballawhaine; 'a thief that's taken every penny I have in the world, and left me a ruined man." "Did he say that?" said Cæsar. "He did, though," said Jonaique. "The ould man was listening from the kitchen-stairs, and young Ross snaked out of the house same as a cur." "And where's he gone to?" said Cæsar. "Gone to the devil, I'm thinking," said Jonaique.
Outside in the stable-yard the feet of Black Tom and Jonaique Jelly were heard going off on the road. The late moon was hanging low, red as an evening sun, over the hill to the south-east. Pete was puffing and blowing as if he had been running a race. "Quick, boy, quick!" he was whispering, "Kate's coming. A word in your ear first. Will you do me a turn, Phil?" "What is it?" said Philip.
"Haven't done as well for a month, sir; but what's it saying, two hungry meals make the third a glutton." "How are you doing, Tom?" "No time to get a right mouthful for myself Cæsar; kept so busy with the drink." "Aw, there'll be some with their top works hampered soon." "Got plenty, Jonaique?" "Plenty, sir, plenty. Enough down here to victual a menagerie.
Oh, we'll be doing it grand," said Pete, blowing over the rim of his saucer. "John the Clerk is tremenjous on the trombones, and there's no bating Jonaique with the clar'net the man is music to his little backbone. The town will be coming out too, and the fishermen shouting like one man. We're bound to let the Governor see we mane it.
John the Clerk was saying that he had to bury the Deemster; Jonaique, the barber, that he had been sent for to "cut" the Bishop; and Claudius Kewley, the farmer, that he had three fields of barley still uncut and a stack of oats unthatched. "Oh, Lord," cried Claudius, "let me not die till I've got nothing to do!"
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