SAILORS' KNOTS

By W.W. Jacobs


1909



DESERTED


"Sailormen ain't wot you might call dandyfied as a rule," said the night-
watchman, who had just had a passage of arms with a lighterman and been
advised to let somebody else wash him and make a good job of it; "they've
got too much sense. They leave dressing up and making eyesores of
theirselves to men wot 'ave never smelt salt water; men wot drift up and
down the river in lighters and get in everybody's way."

He glanced fiercely at the retreating figure of the lighterman, and,
turning a deaf ear to a request for a lock of his hair to patch a
favorite doormat with, resumed with much vigor his task of sweeping up
the litter.

The most dressy sailorman I ever knew, he continued, as he stood the
broom up in a corner and seated himself on a keg, was a young feller
named Rupert Brown. His mother gave 'im the name of Rupert while his
father was away at sea, and when he came 'ome it was too late to alter
it. All that a man could do he did do, and Mrs. Brown 'ad a black eye
till 'e went to sea agin. She was a very obstinate woman, though--like