The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Understudy, by W.W. Jacobs

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Title: The Understudy
Night Watches, Part 3.

Author: W.W. Jacobs

Release Date: April 26, 2004 [EBook #12153]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNDERSTUDY ***

Produced by David Widger

NIGHT WATCHES

by W.W. Jacobs

THE UNDERSTUDY

The Understudy

"Dogs on board ship is a nuisance," said the night-watchman, gazing
fiercely at the vociferous mongrel that had chased him from the deck of
the Henry William; "the skipper asks me to keep an eye on the ship, and
then leaves a thing like that down in the cabin."

He leaned against a pile of empty casks to recover his breath, shook his
fist at the dog, and said, slowly--

Some people can't make too much of 'em. They talk about a dog's honest
eyes and his faithful 'art. I 'ad a dog once, and I never saw his eyes
look so honest as they did one day when 'e was sitting on a pound o'
beefsteak we was 'unting high and low for.

I've known dogs to cause a lot of trouble in my time. A man as used to
live in my street told me he 'ad been in jail three times because dogs
follered him 'ome and wouldn't go away when he told 'em to. He said
that some men would ha' kicked 'em out into the street, but he thought
their little lives was far too valuable to risk in that way.

Some people used to wink when 'e talked like that, but I didn't: I
remembered a dog that took a fancy to old Sam Small and Ginger Dick and
Peter Russet once in just the same way.

It was one night in a little public-'ouse down Commercial Road way.
They 'ad on'y been ashore a week, and, 'aving been turned out of a
music-'all the night afore because a man Ginger Dick had punched in the
jaw wouldn't behave 'imself, they said they'd spend the rest o' their
money on beer instead. There was just the three of 'em sitting by
themselves in a cosy little bar, when the door was pushed open and a big
black dog came in.

He came straight up to Sam and licked his 'and. Sam was eating a
arrowroot biscuit with a bit o' cheese on it at the time. He wasn't wot
you'd call a partickler sort o' man, but, seei