] for two an' six a day--each, mind yu. Then us
looked into a big underground room wer there was a lot o' foreigners
gathered round a fire an' us didn' much like the looks o' that. So us
went straight down to the docks an' tried to ship together on several
sailing ships an' steamers. Some on 'em would on'y take me, an' some
were down to sail at a future date, like, what our money wouldn't last
out tu. _I_ cude ha' got a ship, 'cause I had me Naval Reserve ticket,
but nobody cuden't du wi' both on us--an' where one went t'other was to
go tu, by agreement.

[Sidenote: _AT THE BOARD O' TRADE_]

"Us went back to the lodging house, into a sort o' kitchen in a cellar,
where there was a 'Merican wi' a long white beard cooking, an' men
drunk spewing, an' men lying about asleep like logs. The 'Merican, his
beard looking so red as hell in the firelight, wer stirring some kind
o' stew. Yu shade ha' see'd the faaces what the glow o' they coals
shined on! An' the fude.... An' the tables an' plates.... I've a-gone
short many a time in my day, but I'd never ha' touched muck like they
offered to gie us there. Dick an' me crept up the staircase to bed wi'
empty bellies thic night.

"Soon a'ter we was to bed, Dick says to me: 'Can 'ee feel ort yer
Tony?'

"'No,' I says, an' whatever 'twas, I didn' feel ort o'it. But I see'd
'em crawling so thick as sea-lice on the wall in a southerly gale, an'
I tell 'ee, 'twas they things what took the heart out o' me more'n ort
else, aye! more'n the food an' being away from home. Us cuden turn out,
'cause the landlord had our bags an' us hadn' got no money to get 'em
back wi', nor nowhere else at all to go tu.

"Next morning, us went straight down to the docks again. Cuden' eat no
breakfast what they give'd us. Didn' know what to du. I only had
tuppence left, which wuden' ha' taken me home again, not if I'd been
willing to give up and go. Come to the last, us was forced to break our
agreement. I signed on as able seaman--_able_ seaman 'cause I was a
fishing chap an' had me Royal Naval Reserve ticket--aboard the
_Brooklands_, bound for Bombay. Penny o' me tuppence, I spent writing
home to tell mother. I cuden' stay aboard the ship (an' get summut to
eat) 'cause I had my gear to get an' a ship to find for Dick--an' we
still had hopes, like, o' getting a ship together. Howsbe-ever, us
cuden't, nohow. The writer aboard the _Brooklands_ wuden't advance
me no wages to get any gear. He told me the landl