



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 barge; and he went off to
break the news to 'is pal's wife.  A kind-'earted man 'e was as ever you
see, and, knowing 'ow she would take on when she 'eard the news, he told
her fust of all that 'er husband was killed.  She took on like a mad
thing, and at last, when she couldn't do anything more and 'ad quieted
down a bit, he told 'er that it was on'y a case of a broken leg, thinking
that 'er joy would be so great that she wouldn't think anything of that.
He 'ad to tell her three times afore she understood 'im, and then,
instead of being thankful to 'im for 'is thoughtfulness, she chased him
'arf over Wapping with a chopper, screaming with temper.

I remember Ginger Dick and Peter Russet trying to do old Sam Small a
kindness one time when they was 'aving a rest ashore arter a v'y'ge.
They 'ad took a room together as usual, and for the fust two or three
days they was like brothers.  That couldn't last, o' course, and Sam was
so annoyed one evening at Ginger's suspiciousness by biting a 'arf-dollar
Sam owed 'im and finding it was a bad 'un, that 'e went off to spend the
evening all alone by himself.

He felt a bit dull at fust, but arter he had 'ad two or three 'arf-pints
'e began to take a brighter view of things.  He found a very nice, cosey
little public-'ouse he hadn't been in before, and, arter getting two and
threepence and a pint for the 'arf-dollar with Ginger's tooth-marks on,
he began to think that the world wasn't 'arf as bad a place as people
tried to make out.

There was on'y one other man in the little bar Sam was in--a tall, dark
chap, with black side-whiskers and spectacles, wot kept peeping round the
partition and looking very 'ard at everybody that came in.

"I'm just keeping my eye on 'em, cap'n," he ses to Sam, in a low voice.

"Ho!" ses Sam.

"They don't know me in this disguise," ses the dark man, "but I see as
'ow you spotted me at once.  Anybody 'ud have a 'ard time of it to
deceive you; and then they wouldn't gain nothing by it."

"Nobody ever 'as yet," ses Sam, smiling at 'im.

"And nobody ever will," ses the dark man, shaking his 'cad; "if they was
all as fly as you, I might as well put the shutters up.  How did you twig
I was a detective officer, cap'n?"

Sam, wot was taking a drink, got some beer up 'is nose with surprise.

"That's my secret," he ses, arter the tec 'ad patted 'im on the back and
brought 'im round.

"You're a marvel, that's wot you are