Not he!
You might have called it a pier-head jump--for a gentleman. I saw him
come along. Know the West India Docks, eh?"
Schomberg did not know the West India Docks. Ricardo looked at him
pensively for a while, and then continued, as if such ignorance had to
be disregarded.
"Our tug was already alongside. Two loafers were carrying his dunnage
behind him. I told the dockman at our moorings to keep all fast for a
minute. The gangway was down already; but he made nothing of it. Up he
jumps, one leap, swings his long legs over the rail, and there he is
on board. They pass up his swell dunnage, and he puts his hand in his
trousers pocket and throws all his small change on the wharf for them
chaps to pick up. They were still promenading that wharf on all fours
when we cast off. It was only then that he looked at me--quietly, you
know; in a slow way. He wasn't so thin then as he is now; but I noticed
he wasn't so young as he looked--not by a long chalk. He seemed to touch
me inside somewhere. I went away pretty quick from there; I was wanted
forward anyhow. I wasn't frightened. What should I be frightened for? I
only felt touched--on the very spot. But Jee-miny, if anybody had told
me we should be partners before the year was out--well, I would have--"
He swore a variety of strange oaths, some common, others quaintly
horrible to Schomberg's ears, and all mere innocent exclamations of
wonder at the shifts and changes of human fortune.
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