At the back of the Hard was Jack's own pleasure-ground--half a dozen streets belonging to him, to the watermen, and to those who made it their business to look after Jack. These streets were full of strange things. There were shops where they sold old clos', with many queer things that came home on board. There were birds--parrots, parraquits, avvadavats, love-birds, monkeys, lemurs, flying-fish dried, rotting bananas, Venus's fingers from the Philippines, _cocos de mer_ from the Seychelles, carved wooden boxes from China, queer little nameless things from Japan, curved swords from Malay, groups of figures from India--all these things are common now; they were not common then. I would gaze at them displayed behind the small windows illuminated at night by a single candle, with a sick yearning because I could not buy them all. Meantime--oh, heavenly sound!--the fiddle at the public-house next door strikes up. It is an ancient tavern; the floor was lower than the street; the windows were decorated with transparencies showing the valor of the British tar when engaged with the Chinese. Heavens! How those Chinamen ran! And with what a rapturous sense of duty did Jack seize a pigtail with the left hand, and with the right decapitate poor John Chinaman! It was after the war of 1842, or thereabouts--a war now wellnigh forgotten. Within--I would look in and even step in unregarded--the fiddler sat on a stool at the end of the long low room. He was a Pole. He had but one leg, and he fiddled marvellously, so as to make even a man with a gouty toe stand up and shake that limb. Jack danced hornpipes chiefly; he liked best to dance by himself because the _cavalier seul_ enjoyed more scope for figure-dancing and for flourishes; also because the undivided applause and attention of the house were bestowed upon him. In the reel, in which the fair sex took a share, beauty more than skill--looks, rather than merit--provoked admiration. Poor Jack! Poor fair sex! Was it possible for any human creatures to look more deliriously happy? I have said that the watermen also lived in those back streets; I believe, however, that the watermen lived apart from the sailors; the most of them had been sailors--they were all full of yarns--they were all heroes of the old war; their sons were sailors; but they themselves were married men with families. It was not considered the thing for a sturdy old waterman to frequent the same tavern as Jack ashore; his time for the hornpipe and the fiddle was over.