Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Can't keep them from talking, can't I? Well, I can make 'em talk separate, leastways. If a whole crew came talking, parties would listen; but if it's only one lone old shell-back, it's the usual yarn. And at least, they needn't talk before six months, or if we have luck, and there's a whaler handy three years. And by that time, Mr. Dodd, it's ancient history."
"'Stave me, says old Garnett, solemn like, 'that's true enough. Sink her fer a fool, though, to be a-comin' down here to win back an old windjammer like me What? ye mean that old hag driftin' along the deck? Blast you for a red-headed shell-back, d'ye s'pose I'd take up wid wimmen av your choice?
Bluff, gnarled old Harrison, his predecessor on this vessel, had served as a striking object lesson. He could spin yarns of his adventures by the hour, but at best no one would call him anything but an interesting old character, a retired shell-back on half pay. Dan found no pleasure in looking forward to anything of the sort.
Finally a Shell-Back, who had been leading a Life of Single Torment ever since Sumter was fired upon, asked in a sepulchral Tone and without looking up from his Hand, "Has the Date been set?" Ferdinand tried to tell them that he was going to the Altar and not to the Electric Chair, but he couldn't get a single Slap on the Back.
A lawsuit, whatever its final result, would be quite certain to tie up the property for an indefinite period. Besides, lawsuits in this country cost money. The man who has been making the greater part of the existing trouble, a drunken, quarrelsome old mountain shell-back, named Hicks, came in here to see me this afternoon.
You may be sure that I would never make another voyage and it would save me from the fate of many an old shell-back that is dying around now." Joe's firm belief was that every old sailor who died, turned into a sea- gull. Prompted by curiosity, Paul said: "Now, Joe, what is the first thing you would purchase supposing you had one hundred thousand dollars?"
Later, much later, when the evening's delights had gone by in soft procession, they went to other delights. Osborn brushed Marie's hair with the tortoise shell-back brushes he had given her for a wedding gift, and compared it with the Golden Fleece, the wealth of Sheba, the dust of stars, till she was arrogant with the homage of man and he was drunk with love of her.
On the way out, Curtis tipped Jenkins, tipped him so lavishly that a queer little voice squeaked from a queer little face: "Thank you, sir. Fair weather to both you and your wife, and a safe berth when you drop anchor!" So Jenkins had been a sailor, for none but a shell-back would put his good wishes in such nautical lingo.
To-day he was just a shell-back outward bound, with a sore head and a bruised body; a fellow sufferer in the foc'sle of a dreaded ship, mere dirt beneath the officers' feet. Such a fall! Keenly as I had disliked the man yesterday, to-day I was sorry for him. The more sorry because I felt that the Jocose Swede had come near having me as the butt of his little joke, instead of Cockney.
One old shell-back, coming up river on a Gravesend shrimper, listened in blank astonishment for a minute, and then confided huskily to his mate that he thought their time had come. "'Eavenly, strains! It's wot they calls 'the music o' the spears," he said mysteriously, "Hangels' music wot comes just before a bloke's time's up. We better prepare for the wust."
Word Of The Day