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They hurried away in the direction of the water, which Jackie Tar said he knew, for, said he, "A sailor can always smell the salt sea air, no matter how far away he may be." And sure enough, in a few moments they arrived at the water's edge. "Now that we are here," said Kernel Cob, "what's to be done?"
It's the mistake you lads make that have got nothing either in your brains or your pocket, to think you've got a better start in the world if you stick yourselves in a place where you can keep your coats clean, and have the shopwenches take you for fine gentlemen. That wasn't the way I started, young man; when I was sixteen, my jacket smelt of tar, and I wasn't afraid of handling cheeses.
This was, she thought, a curious speech for a man who had been described as careless, extravagant, and dissolute; but he was getting too serious, and she laughed. "You were energetic enough in England, if reports are true. I've often thought of your right-of-way adventure. It must have been very dramatic when you appeared at the garden party covered with fresh tar."
Some day these records may be made public, and then we shall read of happenings which will cause us to hold our breath, and our hair to bristle like a nail-brush. Who has not heard the story of the unarmed fishing boat which attacked a hostile periscope with nothing more formidable than a coal hammer, or the ex-fisherman who attempted to cloud Fritz's vision with a tar brush?
He had discovered another way out and once more from the high tree tops he sang down to the waiting tiger: "Tango ti tar, tango ti tar, The tiger's bones are in my guitar. Tee hee, Tee hee." There had been a great drought in the land and there was only one watering place where the beasts could drink.
"So much for plain sailing!" cried the delighted tar, slapping the breach of the gun, affectionately. "Witch or no witch, there go two of her jackets at once; and, by the captain's good-will, we shall shortly take off some more of her clothes! In spunge "
Long ago nearly every home in Dockland treasured a lithographic portrait of one of the beauties, framed and hung where visitors could see it as soon as they entered the door. Each of us knew one of them, her runs and her records, the skipper and his fads, the owner and his prejudice about the last pennyworth of tar.
When, in sieges, the catapults were made to fling barrels of flaming tar over these balconies, and set them on fire, recourse was had to structures of stone, and the wooden hourdes, or balconies, disappeared. Then came the machicolated galleries.
They were all as low in flesh and spirits, as it was usual to find birds that have been at sea fifty days, and the honest tar proposed turning them all adrift on the reef, to make their own living in the best way they could. Now and then a little food might be put in their way, but let them have a chance for their lives. Mark assented at once, and the coops were opened.
In the old days the average British tar could not solve the mystery as to what foreigners, and especially Frenchmen, were made for; even at the present time they put on a lordly air when they come in contact with people whom they regard as aliens. This attitude is adopted independent of all reason, and becomes quite infectious. I must have caught it early in life.
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