The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Bed of Roses, by W. L. George

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Title: A Bed of Roses

Author: W. L. George

Release Date: August 26, 2010 [EBook #33538]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A BED OF ROSES . . BY

W. L. GEORGE

AUTHOR OF 'ENGINES OF SOCIAL

PROGRESS,' . . 'FRANCE IN THE

TWENTIETH CENTURY,' &c.

It's not work that any woman would do for pleasure,
goodness knows; though to hear the pious people talk
you would suppose it was a bed of roses. Mrs Warren's
Profession . By G. Bernard Shaw.

AUTHORISED EDITION

BRENTANO'S . NEW YORK

MCMXI

THIRD EDITION

PART I

CHAPTER I

'WE go.' The lascar meditatively pressed his face, brown and begrimed
with coal dust, streaked here and there with sweat, against the rope
which formed the rough bulwark. His dark eyes were fixed on the shore
near by, between which and the ship's side the water quivered quicker
and quicker in little ripples, each ripple carrying an iridescent film
of grey ooze. Without joy or sadness he was bidding goodbye to Bombay,
his city. Those goodbyes are often farewells for lascars who must face
the Bay and the Channel. But the stoker did not care.

His companion lay by his side, lazily propped up on his elbow, not
deigning even to take a last look at the market place, seething still
with its crowded reds and blues and golds. 'Dekko!' cried the first
stoker pointing to the wharf where a white man in a dirty smock had just
cast off the last rope, which came away swishing through the air.

His companion did not raise his eyes. Slowly he tilted up his pannikin
and let the water flow in a thin stream into his mouth, keeping the
metal away from his lips. Then, careless of the land of Akbar, he let
himself sink on the deck and composed himself to sleep. India was no
concern of his.

A few yards away a woman watched them absently from the upper deck. She
was conscious of them, conscious too of the slow insistent buzzing of a
gadfly. Her eyes slowly shifted to