Jimmy was used to such visits at all times of night of day. Men succeeded one another. They spoke in clear voices, pronounced cheerful words, repeated old jokes, listened to him; and each, going out, seemed to leave behind a little of his own vitality, surrender some of his own strength, renew the assurance of life—the indestructible thing! He did not like to be alone in his cabin, because, when he was alone, it seemed to him as if he hadn’t been there at all. There was nothing. No pain. Not now. Perfectly right—but he couldn’t enjoy his healthful repose unless someone was by to see it. This man would do as well as anybody. Donkin watched him stealthily:—“Soon home now,” observed Wait.—“Vy d’yer whisper?” asked Donkin with interest, “can’t yer speak up?” Jimmy looked annoyed and said nothing for a while; then in a lifeless, unringing voice:—“Why should I shout? You ain’t deaf that I know.”—“Oh! I can ’ear right enough,” answered Donkin in a low tone, and looked down. He was thinking sadly of going out when Jimmy spoke again.—“Time we did get home … to get something decent to eat … I am always hungry.” Donkin felt angry all of a sudden.—“What about me,” he hissed, “I am ’ungry too an’ got ter work. You, ’ungry!”—“Your work won’t kill you,” commented Wait, feebly; “there’s a couple of biscuits in the lower bunk there—you may have one. I can’t eat them.” Donkin dived in, groped in the corner and when he came up again his mouth was full. He munched with ardour. Jimmy seemed to doze with open eyes. Donkin finished his hard bread and got up.—“You’re not going?” asked Jimmy, staring at the ceiling.—“No,” said Donkin, impulsively, and instead of going out leaned his back against the closed door. He looked at James Wait, and saw him long, lean, dried up, as though all his flesh had shrivelled on his bones in the heat of a white furnace; the meagre fingers of one hand moved lightly upon the edge of the bunk playing an endless tune. To look at him was irritating and fatiguing; he could last like this for days; he was outrageous—belonging wholly neither to death nor life, and perfectly invulnerable in his apparent ignorance of both. Donkin felt tempted to enlighten him.—“What are yer thinkin’ of?” he asked, surlily. James Wait had a grimacing smile that passed over the deathlike impassiveness of his bony face, incredible and frightful as would, in a dream, have been the sudden smile of a corpse.
“There is a girl,” whispered Wait. … “Canton Street girl.—She chucked a third engineer of a Rennie boat—for me. Cooks oysters just as I like … She says—she would chuck—any toff—louder.”
Donkin could hardly believe his ears. He was scandalised—“Would she? Yer wouldn’t be any good to ’er,” he said with unrestrained disgust. Wait was not there to hear him. He was swaggering up the East India Dock Road; saying kindly, “Come along for a treat,” pushing glass swing-doors, posing with superb assurance in the gaslight above a mahogany counter.—“D’yer think yer will ever get ashore?” asked Donkin, angrily. Wait came back with a start.—“Ten days,” he said, promptly, and returned at once to the regions of memory that know nothing of time. He felt untired, calm, and safely withdrawn within himself beyond the reach of every grave incertitude. There was something of the immutable quality of eternity in the slow moments of his complete restfulness. He was very quiet and easy amongst his vivid reminiscences which he mistook joyfully for images of an undoubted future. He cared for no one. Donkin felt this vaguely like a blind man feeling in his darkness the fatal antagonism of all the surrounding existences, that to him shall forever remain irrealisable, unseen and enviable. He had a desire to assert his importance, to break, to crush; to be even with everybody for everything; to tear the veil, unmask, expose, leave no refuge—a perfidious desire of truthfulness! He laughed in a mocking splutter and said:
“Ten days. Strike me blind if ever! … You will be dead by this time tomorrow p’r’aps. Ten days!” He waited for a while. “D’ye ’ear me? Blamme if yer don’t look dead already.”
Wait must have been collecting his strength, for he said almost aloud—“You’re a stinking, cadging liar. Everyone knows you.” And sitting up, against all probability, startled his visitor horribly. But very soon Donkin recovered himself. He blustered, “What? What? Who’s a liar? You are—the crowd are—the skipper—everybody. I ain’t! Putting on airs! Who’s yer?” He nearly choked himself with indignation. “Who’s yer to put on airs,” he repeated, trembling. “ ’Ave one—’ave one, says ’ee—an’ cawn’t eat ’em ’isself. Now I’ll ’ave both. By Gawd—I will! Yer nobody!”
He plunged into the lower bunk, rooted in there and brought to light another dusty biscuit. He held it up before Jimmy—then took a bite defiantly.
“What now?” he asked with feverish impudence. “Yer may take one—says yer. Why not giv’ me both? No. I’m a mangy dorg. One fur a mangy dorg. I’ll tyke both. Can yer stop me? Try. Come on. Try.”
Jimmy was clasping his legs and hiding his face on the knees. His shirt clung to him. Every rib was visible. His emaciated back was shaken in repeated jerks by the panting catches of his breath.
“Yer won’t? Yer can’t! What did I say?” went on Donkin, fiercely. He swallowed another dry mouthful with a hasty effort. The other’s silent helplessness, his weakness, his shrinking attitude exasperated him. “Ye’re done!” he cried. “Who’s yer to be lied to; to be waited on ’and an’ foot like a bloomin’ ymperor. Yer nobody. Yer no one at all!” he spluttered with such a strength of unerring conviction that it shook him from head to foot in coming out, and left
