It is good to hear Uncle Jake talk about the work that nobody else will do. (The exposure alone would be too much for many of them.) His face wrinkles up within its grey picture-frame beard, his keen yet wistful eyes open wide, and he draws up that youthful body of his--clad in faded blue jumper and torn trousers--on which the head of a venerable old man seems so incongruously set. He is the owner of a big drifter which hardly pays her expenses; he feels that taking out pleasure parties is no work for a fisherman--'never wasn't used to be at the beck an' call o' they sort o' people when I wer young';--and therefore he picks up a living, laborious but very independent, between high and low tide mark for many miles east and west of Seacombe. Nobody learns exactly when or where he goes, nor what little valuables are in the old sack that he carries. He seldom sleeps for more than two hours on end; has breakfast at midnight, dinner in the early morning, and tea-supper only if it happens to be handy; and he feeds mainly on bread, cheese, sugar and much butter, with an occasional feast of half a dozen mackerel at once, or a skate or a small conger. Singularly straightforward in all his dealings, a little of the old West-country wrecking spirit yet survives in him, and he enjoys nothing better than smuggling jetsam past the coastguards. Social position saves no one from hearing what Uncle Jake thinks. His tongue is loaded with scorn and sarcasm, but his heart holds nothing but kindness. He will jeer and taunt a man off the Front, and give him money round the corner or food in house. His nicknames are terrible--they stick. Few would care to turn and fight such an old man, and if they did he would almost certainly knock them into the dust or throw them into the sea. He is childless; and, since her illness several years ago, his wife, an untidy woman with beautiful eyes, has been scatterbrained and more trouble than use, a spender of his savings. He nursed her himself for many months. He does most of the housework now. He may remark on his wife, if he knows you very well, but about the childlessness he never talks.