Page:Such Is Life.djvu/39

Rh "Between ourselves, Thompson," remarked Willoughby, "his conversation this afternoon rather amused me. It recalled to my mind an excellent and most characteristic pleasantry, which you may not have heard. The story goes that Coleridge once asked Lamb, 'Did you ever hear me preach?' 'Preach!' said Lamb; Gad, I never heard you do anything else!' And yet, if Mr. Collins had enjoyed the advantages accruing from even the rudiments of a liberal ed"

"He's got summick to do with Gub'ment lately," said Price cunningly. "My 'pinion, he's shadderin' summedy."

"He ain't a gurl o' that sort," interposed Bum hastily. "My 'pinion, he's a spieler. No more a detective nor I am."

I returned to the group. My friends drained their pannikins; Thompson threw his at the tucker-box, and Cooper was just aiming his, when Willoughby, who had shared the frosted mutton, interposed

"If you please, Cooper."

"Seen better days, pore (fellow)," observed Cooper sympathetically, as the ripple of the water into the pannikin indicated that the whaler was at the tap.

"Can't see much worse," mused Thompson.

"My (adj.) oath—can't he?" chuckled Mosey. "Hold on till he gits old."

"People seem to think Gawd made these here colonies for a rubbage-heap," said Bum. "That's the English idear of"

"Stiddy, Charley," interrupted Dixon. "Everybody's got a right to live, an' that pore (fellow)'s got jist as much right as me or you. A man ought to show respect to misforcune, Charley."

"Shall I bring a pannikin of water for any of you gentlemen?" asked Willoughby, without a trace of ironical emphasis on the last word.

"Fetch me one while yer hand's in," replied Bum.

Willoughby brought the drink. I fancied even an accession to the subdued suavity of his manner as he picked up and replaced on the tuckerbox the empty pannikin which Bum had thanklessly tossed on the ground at his feet. Then he resumed his place; and Thompson, palpably turning his back on Dixon and Bum, selected him as chief hearer of his recommenced discourse

"Comes as near the blackfellow as it's possible for a white man to get. And you couldn't kill him with an axe. Then start him at any civilised work—such as splicing a loop on a wool rope, or making a yoke, or wedging a loose box in a wheel—and he has the best hands in the country. At the same time, it's plain to be seen that he has been brought up in the class of society that sticks a napkin, in a bone ring, alongside your plate at dinner." Here Thompson paused, and the recurrence of some distressing memory elicited a half-suppressed sigh.

"There is nothing unreasonable in that phenomenon," remarked Willoughby—"rather the reverse. Probably the person you speak of is a gentleman. Now, the man who is a gentleman by birth and culture—by which I mean a man of good family, who has not only gone through the curriculum of a university, but has graduated, so to speak, in society—such