Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/14

 and that—they don't do nothing but just sit around. When they turn out of a morning they get some yellow paper and some leaf tobacco, and they rolls what they calls cigarellers and sticks them in their ears like pens. That's their day's work, that is—rolling them yellow cigarellers. Well, then, they set around and they smokes—big men, too, most of them—and they put flowers in their hats—red roses and that—and that's how they pass their time.

Now this Don Alfonso he was a terror, he was; for they've got a licker in those parts. If you put some of it on a piece of paint-work—and this is gospel that I'm giving you—that paint it comes off like you was using turps. Now Don Alfonso he was a terror at that licker—and that's the sort of Dago-boy Alfonso was.

Now Alfonso's mother was a widow, and he was her only child, like in the play.

Now one time, when Don Alfonso was in the pulperia (that's Spanish for grog-shop), he was a-bluin' down that licker the same as you or I would be bluin' beer. And there was a gang of Dagoes there, and all of them chewing the rag,