If there was one silly fool that asked me the
best way of making mud-pies, I should think there was fifty. Little
things please little minds, and the silly way some of 'em went on made me
feel sorry for my sects.
By eight o'clock, 'owever, they 'ad all sheered off, and I got a broom
and began to sweep up to 'elp pass the time away until low-water. On'y
one craft 'ad come up that day--a ketch called the Peewit--and as she was
berthed at the end of the jetty she wasn't in my way at all.
Her skipper came on to the wharf just afore ten. Fat, silly old man 'e
was, named Fogg. Always talking about 'is 'ealth and taking medicine to
do it good. He came up to me slow like, and, when 'e stopped and asked
me about the rheumatics, the broom shook in my 'and.
"Look here," I ses, "if you want to be funny, go and be funny with them
as likes it. I'm fair sick of it, so I give you warning."
"Funny?" he ses, staring at me with eyes like a cow. "Wot d'ye mean?
There's nothing funny about rheumatics; I ought to know; I'm a martyr to
it. Did you find as 'ow the mud did you any good?"
I looked at 'im hard, but 'e stood there looking at me with his fat baby-
face, and I knew he didn't mean any harm; so I answered 'im perlite and
wished 'im good night.
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