CHAPTER V.


THE WHALEBOAT.

A barber's pole protruded beside the ope leading to Captain Coffin's
lodgings. It was painted in spirals of scarlet and blue, and at the
end of it a cage containing a grey parrot dangled over the footway.

"Drunk again!" screamed the parrot, as I hesitated before the
entrance, for the directing-marks just here were so numerous as to be
perplexing. To the right of the alley the barber had affixed his
signboard, close above the base of his pole; to the left a flanking
slopshop dangled a row of cast-off suits, while immediately overhead
was nailed a board painted over with ornate flourishes and the
legend--

"G. Goodfellow. Carpenter and House-Decorator, &c.
Repairs Neatly Executed. Instruction in the Violin.
Funerals at the Shortest Notice. Shipping Supplied."

"Drunk again!" repeated the parrot. "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss
me! Oh, you nasty image! Kiss me, kiss me! Who killed the
Portugee?"

"He don't mean you," explained the barber, reassuringly, emerging at
that moment from his shop with a pannikin of water for the parrot's
cage, which he lowered very deftly by means of a halliard reeved
through a block at the end of the pole. "He means old Coffin.
Nice bird, hey?"