The Project Gutenberg EBook of Double Dealing, by W.W. Jacobs

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Title: Double Dealing
Sailor's Knots, Part 11.

Author: W.W. Jacobs

Release Date: January 22, 2004 [EBook #10791]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOUBLE DEALING ***

Produced by David Widger

SAILORS' KNOTS

By W.W. Jacobs

1909

DOUBLE DEALING

Mr. Fred Carter stood on the spacious common, inhaling with all the joy of
the holiday-making Londoner the salt smell of the sea below, and
regarding with some interest the movements of a couple of men who had
come to a stop a short distance away. As he looked they came on again,
eying him closely as they approached--a strongly built, shambling man of
fifty, and a younger man, evidently his son.

[Illustration: "Stood on the spacious common, inhaling the salt smell of
the sea below."]

"Good-evening," said the former, as they came abreast of Mr. Carter.

"Good-evening," he replied.

"That's him," said both together.

They stood regarding him in a fashion unmistakably hostile. Mr. Carter,
with an uneasy smile, awaited developments.

"What have you got to say for yourself?" demanded the elder man, at last.
"Do you call yourself a man?"

"I don't call myself anything," said the puzzled Mr. Carter. "Perhaps
you're mistaking me for somebody else."

"Didn't I tell you," said the younger man, turning to the other--"didn't
I tell you he'd say that?"

"He can say what he likes," said the other, "but we've got him now. If
he gets away from me he'll be cleverer than what he thinks he is."

"What are we to do with him now we've got him?" inquired his son.

The elder man clenched a huge fist and eyed Mr. Carter savagely. "If I
was just considering myself," he said, "I should hammer him till I was
tired and then chuck him into the sea."

His son nodded. "That wouldn't do Nancy much good, though," he remarked.

"I want to do everything for the best," said the other, "and I s'pose the
right and proper thing to do is to take him by the scruff of his neck and
run him along to Nancy."

"You try it," said Mr. Carter, hotly. "Who is Nancy?"

The other growled