



Produced by David Widger




SAILORS' KNOTS

By W.W. Jacobs


1909



SELF-HELP


The night-watchman sat brooding darkly over life and its troubles.  A
shooting corn on the little toe of his left foot, and a touch of liver,
due, he was convinced, to the unlawful cellar work of the landlord of the
Queen's Head, had induced in him a vein of profound depression.  A
discarded boot stood by his side, and his gray-stockinged foot protruded
over the edge of the jetty until a passing waterman gave it a playful rap
with his oar.  A subsequent inquiry as to the price of pigs' trotters
fell on ears rendered deaf by suffering.

"I might 'ave expected it," said the watchman, at last.  "I done that
man--if you can call him a man--a kindness once, and this is my reward
for it.  Do a man a kindness, and years arterwards 'e comes along and
hits you over your tenderest corn with a oar."

[Illustration: "''E comes along and hits you over your tenderest corn
with a oar.'"]

He took up his boot, and, inserting his foot with loving care, stooped
down and fastened the laces.

Do a man a kindness, he continued, assuming a safer posture, and 'e tries
to borrow money off of you; do a woman a kindness and she thinks you want
tr marry 'er; do an animal a kindness and it tries to bite you--same as a
horse bit a sailorman I knew once, when 'e sat on its head to 'elp it get
up.  He sat too far for'ard, pore chap.

Kindness never gets any thanks.  I remember a man whose pal broke 'is leg
while they was working together unloading a b