Strickland had no papers, but that was not a matter to disconcert Tough Bill when he saw a profit (he took the first month's wages of the sailor for whom he found a berth), and he provided Strickland with those of an English stoker who had providentially died on his hands.But both Captain Nichols and Strickland were bound East, and it chanced that the only opportunities for signing on were with ships sailing West.Twice Strickland refused a berth on tramps sailing for the United States, and once on a collier going to Newcastle.Tough Bill had no patience with an obstinacy which could only result in loss to himself, and on the last occasion he flung both Strickland and Captain Nichols out of his house without more ado. They found themselves once more adrift.
Tough Bill's fare was seldom extravagant, and you rose from his table almost as hungry as you sat down, but for some days they had good reason to regret it.They learned what hunger was.The Cuillere de Soupe andthe Asile de Nuit were both closed to them, and their only sustenance was the wedge of bread which the Bouchee de Pain provided.They slept where they could, sometimes in an empty truck on a siding near the station, sometimes in a cart behind a warehouse; but it was bitterly cold, and after an hour or two of uneasy dozing they would tramp the streets again.What they felt the lack of most bitterly was tobacco, and Captain Nichols, for his part, could not do without it; he took to hunting the "Can o' Beer," for cigarette-ends and the butt-end of cigars which the promenaders of the night before had thrown away.
"I've tasted worse smoking mixtures in a pipe," he added, with a philosophic shrug of his shoulders, as he took a couple of cigars from the case I offered him, putting one in his mouth and the other in his pocket.
Now and then they made a bit of money.Sometimes a mail steamer would come in, and Captain Nichols, having scraped acquaintance with the timekeeper, would succeed in getting the pair of them a job as stevedores.When it was an English boat, they would dodge into the forecastle and get a hearty breakfast from the crew.They took the risk of running against one of the ship's officers and being hustled down the gangway with the toe of a boot to speed their going.
"There's no harm in a kick in the hindquarters when your belly's full," said Captain Nichols, "and personally I never take it in bad part.An officer's got to think about discipline."I had a lively picture of Captain Nichols flying headlong down a narrow gangway before the uplifted foot of an angry mate, and, like a true Englishman, rejoicing in the spirit of the Mercantile Marine.
There were often odd jobs to be got about the fish-market.Once they each of them earned a franc by loading trucks with innumerable boxes of oranges that had been dumped down on the quay.One day they had a stroke of luck: one of the boarding-masters got a contract to paint a tramp that had come in from Madagascar round the Cape of Good Hope, and they spent several days on a plank hanging over the side, covering the rusty hull with paint.It was a situation that must have appealed to Strickland's sardonic humour.I asked Captain Nichols how he bore himself during these hardships.
"Never knew him say a cross word," answered the Captain."He'd be a bit surly sometimes, but when we hadn't had a bite since morning, and we hadn't even got the price of a lie down at the Chink's, he'd be as lively as a cricket."I was not surprised at this.Strickland was just the man to rise superior to circumstances, when they were such as to occasion despondency in most; but whether this was due to equanimity of soul or to contradictoriness it would be difficult to say.
The Chink's Head was a name the beach-combers gave to a wretched inn off the Rue Bouterie, kept by a one-eyed Chinaman, where for six sous you could sleep in a cot and for three on the floor.Here they made friends with others in as desperate condition as themselves, and when they were penniless and the night was bitter cold, they were glad to borrow from anyone who had earned a stray franc during the day the price of a roof over their heads.They were not niggardly, these tramps, and he who had money did not hesitate to share it among the rest.They belonged to all the countries in the world, but this was no bar to good-fellowship; for they felt themselves freemen of a country whose frontiers include them all, the great country of Cockaine.
"But I guess Strickland was an ugly customer when he was roused," said Captain Nichols, reflectively."One day we ran into Tough Bill in the Place, and he asked Charlie for the papers he'd given him.""`You'd better come and take them if you want them,' says Charlie."He was a powerful fellow, Tough Bill, but he didn't quite like the lookof Charlie, so he began cursing him.He called him pretty near every name he could lay hands on, and when Tough Bill began cursing it was worth listening to him.Well, Charlie stuck it for a bit, then he stepped forward and he just said: `Get out, you bloody swine.' It wasn't so much what he said, but the way he said it.Tough Bill never spoke another word; you could see him go yellow, and he walked away as if he'd remembered he had a date."Strickland, according to Captain Nichols, did not use exactly the words I have given, but since this book is meant for family reading I have thought it better, at the expense of truth, to put into his mouth expressionsfamiliar to the domestic circle.
Now, Tough Bill was not the man to put up with humiliation at the hands of a common sailor.His power depended on his prestige, and first one, then another, of the sailors who lived in his house told them that he had sworn to do Strickland in.
