The Project Gutenberg EBook of Captains All, by W.W. Jacobs

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Title: Captains All
Captains All, Part 1.

Author: W.W. Jacobs

Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11181]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAINS ALL ***

Produced by David Widger

CAPTAINS ALL

By W.W. Jacobs

CAPTAINS ALL

[Illustration: "Captains All."]

Every sailorman grumbles about the sea, said the night-watchman,
thoughtfully. It's human nature to grumble, and I s'pose they keep on
grumbling and sticking to it because there ain't much else they can do.
There's not many shore-going berths that a sailorman is fit for, and
those that they are--such as a night-watchman's, for instance--wants such
a good character that there's few as are to equal it.

Sometimes they get things to do ashore. I knew one man that took up
butchering, and 'e did very well at it till the police took him up.
Another man I knew gave up the sea to marry a washerwoman, and they
hadn't been married six months afore she died, and back he 'ad to go to
sea agin, pore chap.

A man who used to grumble awful about the sea was old Sam Small--a man
I've spoke of to you before. To hear 'im go on about the sea, arter he
'ad spent four or five months' money in a fortnight, was 'artbreaking.
He used to ask us wot was going to happen to 'im in his old age, and when
we pointed out that he wouldn't be likely to 'ave any old age if he
wasn't more careful of 'imself he used to fly into a temper and call us
everything 'e could lay his tongue to.

One time when 'e was ashore with Peter Russet and Ginger Dick he seemed
to 'ave got it on the brain. He started being careful of 'is money
instead o' spending it, and three mornings running he bought a newspaper
and read the advertisements, to see whether there was any comfortable
berth for a strong, good-'arted man wot didn't like work.

He actually went arter one situation, and, if it hadn't ha' been for
seventy-nine other men, he said he believed he'd ha' had a good chance of
getting it. As it was, all 'e got was a black eye for shoving another
man, and for a day or two he was so down-'arted th