When I asked him how it was
he had come to sea, he replied that the hooks in his brain were as
hot one place as another. He unbent enough to tell me that he had
been an athlete, when he was a young man, a professional foot-racer
in Eastern Canada. And then his disease had come upon him, and for a
quarter of a century he had been a common tramp and vagabond, and he
bragged of a personal acquaintance with more city prisons and county
jails than any man that ever existed.
It was at this stage in our talk that Mr. Pike thrust his head into
the doorway. He did not address me, but he favoured me with a most
sour look of disapprobation. Mr. Pike's countenance is almost
petrified. Any expression seems to crack it--with the exception of
sourness. But when Mr. Pike wants to look sour he has no difficulty
at all. His hard-skinned, hard-muscled face just flows to sourness.
Evidently he condemned my consuming Mulligan Jacobs's time. To
Mulligan Jacobs he said in his customary snarl:
"Go on an' get to your work. Chew the rag in your watch below.
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