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Updated: June 1, 2025
We managed, combatants and seconds alike, not forgetting the director- in-chief of the fight, Master Larrikins, to reach the sanctuary of the lower deck unseen by any of the ship's corporals, or `crushers, as Larrikins facetiously called them.
A laugh went round amongst us, which was only quenched by the master-at- arms singing out "Silence there!" and then; the lot of us were taken by Larrikins to the ship's steward, who served out to each of us a hammock and a pair of blankets, part of the outfit to which all second-class boys are entitled on joining the Navy, when a grateful country makes them a present of six guineas to furnish themselves with a rig-out!
Then, it was put a slop to, so far as the particular incident was concerned, in a twinkle. Not being in uniform, I kept aloof from these mad pranks, sticking close to Mick Donovan, who I saw was ashamed of his ragged clothes, being afraid of the boys jeering him, like Larrikins.
On our way up the heights, Larrikins and I, who were scouting in advance, on either side of the front of the column, met a native, who told us in the bastard jargon of the coast called the Swahili language that some big animals, which he said were bigger than us and covered with long hair, were in a valley on our right; and that, if we valued our lives, so at least Larrikins told me, he having picked up some of the lingo from a negro woman at Malindi, we had better make a detour so as to avoid this place.
Neither he nor Jack Drew were particularly friendly with Browne or his push. The rest were crawlers, mostly pub spielers and bush larrikins, and the women were hags and larrikinesses. The town lived on cheque-men from the surrounding bush. It was a nice little place, taking it all round.
"Lor', it ain't much to holler about!" exclaimed the fastidious Larrikins, on Mick rubbing his hands at seeing those appetising viands; while `Ugly' cried out joyously, on noticing his mealy mass of potatoes, "Them's the raal jockeys fur I," thus paraphrasing the remark of a once celebrated millionaire possessed of much lucre but boasting of little conversational power, when at a state banquet, "Why, we only calls this aboard `two spuds and a Jonah!"
"Why," I exclaimed, "who is he?" "The quarter-master, in course," rejoined Larrikins indignantly. "Where wos yer raised not fur to know that afore? He allers goes by that name aboard ship, as everybody knows."
We had a good rise out of the old quarter-master the very same evening, though, which was rather ill-natured on our part. He was on duty at the gangway, when one of the new chaps, who, like Larrikins, had a great bent for practical skylarking, went to him with a smug face, as innocent as you please.
But, Larrikins and I were English sailors not any of your Maltese riffraff; and so, picking up the scattered gold, we gave it back to the old impostor, the suspicious scoundrel counting each piece as we dropped it into his hands to make sure that we did not purloin any. "Take that, yer old joker," said Larrikins, as we left the scene of the incident, tendering the old gentleman a parting kick.
It is, as a rule, the worst type of the Chinese who leave their native land to make a new home elsewhere, and it is not to be expected that they will be much improved by intercourse with the Australian "larrikins," who are composed of the lowest and most criminal orders.
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