'e being an iggernerant sort of man
and only being able to do the kisses at the end, which he always insisted
on doing 'imself: being jealous. Only three weeks arter he was married
'e come up to where I was standing one day and set about me without
saying a word. I was a single man at the time and I didn't understand
it. My idea was that he 'ad gone mad, and, being pretty artful and
always 'aving a horror of mad people, I let 'im chase me into a
police-station. Leastways, I would ha' let 'im, but he didn't come,
and I all but got fourteen days for being drunk and disorderly.

Then there was Bill Clark. He 'ad been keeping comp'ny with a gal and
got tired of it, and to oblige 'im I went to her and told 'er he was a
married man with five children. Bill was as pleased as Punch at fust,
but as soon as she took up with another chap he came round to see me and
said as I'd ruined his life. We 'ad words about it--naturally--and I did
ruin it then to the extent of a couple o' ribs. I went to see 'im in the
horsepittle--place I've always been fond of--and the langwidge he used to
me was so bad that they sent for the Sister to 'ear it.

That's on'y two out of dozens I could name. Arf the unpleasantnesses in
my life 'ave come out of doing kindnesses to people, and all the
gratitoode I've 'ad for it I could put in a pint-pot with a pint o' beer
already in it.

The only case o' real gratitoode I ever heard of 'appened to a shipmate
o' mine--a young chap named Bob Evans. Coming home from Auckland in a
barque called the _Dragon Fly_ he fell overboard, and another chap named
George Crofts, one o' the best swimmers I ever knew, went overboard arter
'im and saved his life.

We was hardly moving at the time, and the sea was like a duck pond, but
to 'ear Bob Evans talk you'd ha' thought that George Crofts was the
bravest-'arted chap that ever lived. He 'adn't liked him afore, same as
the rest of us, George being a sly, mean sort o' chap; but arter George
'ad saved his life 'e couldn't praise 'im enough. He said that so long
as he 'ad a crust George should share it, and wotever George asked 'im he
should have.

The unfortnit part of it was that George took 'im at his word, and all
the rest of the v'y'ge he acted as though Bob belonged to 'im, and by the
time we got into the London river Bob couldn't call his soul 'is own. He
used to take a room when he was ashore and live very steady, as 'e was
saving up to get married, and