Naval Occasions, and Some Traits of the Sailor-manBartimeus
History
Naval Occasions, and Some Traits of the Sailor-man
Bartimeus
Great Britain -- History, Naval -- 20th century -- Fiction; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- Fiction; Sailors -- Fiction; Sea stories, English
The other thought for a moment. "There’s a thing ... I don’t know what
it’s called ... it’s like wind in the leaves—_she_ knows." He beckoned
a waiter and whispered. The girl with the pale face looked across the
room and for an instant met the eyes of the Young Doctor; then she ran
her fingers lightly over the keys and drifted into Sinding’s
_Frühlingsrauschen_.
The Surgeon nodded delightedly. "That’s the thing.... Good girl. I
don’t know what it’s called, but it reminds me of things." He munched
cheerfully, pausing anon to bury his face in a tankard of beer, and they
fell to discussing prospects of sport up the Yangtse. Once or twice as
she played, the girl behind the piano allowed her dark eyes to travel
across the crowded grill-room over the heads of the diners, and her
glance lingered a moment at the table where the two "last-nighters" were
seated. The first violin, who was also a musician, sat with a rapt
expression, holding his fiddle across his knees. When the piece was over
he started abruptly—so abruptly it was evident that for him a spell had
broken. He looked up at the pianist with a queer, puzzled expression,
as if half-resentful of something.
The Young Doctor was arranging forks and a cruet-stand in a diagram on
the table-cloth. "There was a joss-house here, if you remember, and the
guns were here ... the pigeon came over that clump of bamboo...." The
other, leaning across the table, nodded with absorbed interest.
/TB
The Lieutenant glanced at his watch. "Come along; we must be moving if
we’re going to the ’Palace.’" They paid their bill, tipped the waiter
in a manner that appeared to threaten him with instant dislocation of
the spine, and walked up the tiled passage that led past the open door
of the lounge. From her vantage behind the bar inside, the girl some one
had addressed as "Molly" caught a glimpse of their retreating figures.
She slipped out through the throng of customers, most of whom had dined,
and were talking to each other over their port and liqueurs, into the
quiet of the corridor.
"Jerry!" she called; "Mr——"
"Lord!" ejaculated the Junior Watch-keeper, "I’d forgotten—" He turned
quickly on his heel. "Hullo, Molly! We’re coming back presently. But
that reminds me..." he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and the Surgeon
strolled slowly on up the steps, round a bend, and was lost to view.
The girl gave a little breathless laugh. "That’s what you all say, you
boys. And you never do come back.... _You_ weren’t going without
saying good-bye to me, were you?"
"No, no, Molly, of course I wasn’t: and look here, old lady, here’s a
gadget I got for you—" he fumbled with the tissue paper enclosing a
little leather case.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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