They say he's
cracked, but it ain't so, he's English--they're awful particular.
You won't mind my saying that. You--you're English?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. I could tell it by the way you mispronounce the words
that's got a's in them, you know; such as saying loff when you mean laff
--but you'll get over that. He's a right down good fellow, and a little
sociable with the photographer's boy and the caulker and the blacksmith
that work in the navy yard, but not so much with the others. The fact
is, though it's private, and the others don't know it, he's a kind of an
aristocrat, his father being a doctor, and you know what style that is--
in England, I mean, because in this country a doctor ain't so very much,
even if he's that. But over there of course it's different. So this
chap had a falling out with his father, and was pretty high strung, and
just cut for this country, and the first he knew he had to get to work or
starve. Well, he'd been to college, you see, and so he judged he was all
right--did you say anything?"
"No--I only sighed."
"And there's where he was mistaken. Why, he mighty near starved. And I
reckon he would have starved sure enough, if some jour' printer or other
hadn't took pity on him and got him a place as apprentice.
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