George Fenn - Dutch the Diver - or, A Man's Mistake

“I say, Rasp. Confound the man! Rasp, will you leave that fire alone? Do you want to roast me?”

“What’s the good o’ you saying will I leave the fire alone, Mr Pug?” said the man addressed, stoking savagely at the grate; “you know as well as I do that if I leave it half hour you never touches it, but lets it go out.”

Half a scuttle of coals poured on.

“No, no. No more coals, Rasp.”

“They’re on now, Mr Pug,” said Rasp, with a grim grin. “You know how the governor grumbles if the fire’s out, and it’s me as ketches it.”

“The office is insufferably hot now.”

“Good job, too; for it’s cold enough outside, I can tell you; and there’s a draught where I sits just as if you’d got yer ear up again the escape-valve of the air-pump.”

“Get a screen, then,” said the first speaker, impatiently, as he scratched his thick, curly, crisp brown hair with the point of a pair of compasses, and gazed intently at a piece of drawing-paper pinned out upon the desk before him.

“Screen? Bah! What do I want wi’ screens? I can stand wind and cold, and a bit o’ fire, too, for the matter o’ that. I ain’t like some people.”

“Hang it all, Rasp, I wish you’d go,” said the first speaker. “You see how busy I am. What’s the matter with you this morning? Really, you’re about the most disagreeable old man I ever knew.”

“Disagreeable? Old?” cried Rasp, seizing the poker, and inserting it in the bars for another good stoke at the office fire, when the compasses were banged down on the desk, their owner leaped off the stool, twisted the poker out of the stoker’s hand, and laughingly threw it down on the fender.

“I’ll get Mr Parkley to find you a post somewhere as fireman at a furnace,” said the first speaker, laughing.

“I don’t want no fireman’s places,” growled Rasp. “How’d the work go on here wi’out me? Old, eh? Disagreeable, eh! Sixty ain’t so old, nayther; and just you wear diving soots for forty year, and get your head blown full o’ wind till you’re ’most ready to choke, and be always going down, and risking your blessed life, and see if you wouldn’t soon be disagreeable.”

“Well, Rasp, I’ve been down pretty frequently, and in as risky places as most men of my age, and it hasn’t made me such an old crab.”

“What, you? Bah! Nothing puts you out – nothing makes you cross ’cept too much fire, and you do get waxey over that. But you try it for forty year – forty year, you know, and just see what you’re like then, Mr Pug.”

“Confound it all, Rasp,” cried the younger man, “that’s the third time in the last ten minutes that you’ve called me Pug. My name is Pugh – PUGH – Pugh.”

“’Taint,” said the old fellow, roughly, “I ain’t lived sixty year in the world, and don’t know how to spell. PEW spells pew , and PUGH spells pug , with the H at the end and wi’out it, so you needn’t tell me.”

“You obstinate old crab,” said the other, good-humouredly, as he stopped him from making another dash at the poker. “There, be off, I’m very busy.”

“You allus are busy,” growled the old fellow; “you’ll get your brains all in a muddle wi’ your figuring and drawing them new dodges and plans. No one thinks the better o’ you, no matter how hard you works. It’s my opinion, Mr Dutch – there, will that suit yer, as you don’t like to be called Mr Pug?”

“There, call me what you like, Rasp, you’re a good, old fellow, and I shall never forget what you have done for me.”

“Bah! Don’t talk stuff,” cried the old fellow, snappishly.

“Stuff, eh?” said the other, laughing, as he took up his compasses, and resumed his seat. “Leave – that – fire – alone!” he cried, seizing a heavy ruler, and shaking it menacingly as the old man made once more for the poker. “And now, hark here – Mrs Pugh says you are to come out to the cottage on Sunday week to dinner, and spend the day.”

“Did she say that? Did she say that, Mr Dutch?” cried the old man, with exultation.

“Yes, she wants to have a long chat with the man who saved her husband’s life.”

“Now, what’s the good o’ talking such stuff as that, Mr Pug?” cried the old man, angrily. “Save life, indeed! Why, I only come down and put a rope round you. Any fool could ha’ done it.”

“But no other fool would risk his life as you did yours to save mine, Rasp,” said the younger man, quietly. “But, there, we won’t talk about it. It gives me the horrors. Now, mind, you’re to come down on Sunday week.”

“I ain’t comin’ out there to be buttered,” growled the old fellow, sourly.

“Buttered, man?”

“Well, yes – to be talked to and fussed and made much of by your missus, Master Dutch.”

“Nonsense!”

“’Taint nonsense. There, I tell you what, if she’ll make a contract not to say a word about the accident, and I may sit and smoke a pipe in that there harbour o’ yourn, I’ll come.”

“Arbour at this time of the year, Rasp?” laughed the younger man. “Why, it’s too cold.”

“What’s that to do wi’ it? Just as if I couldn’t stand cold. Deal better than you can heat.”

“Then I shall tell her you are coming, Rasp. What would you like for dinner?”

“Oh, anything’ll do for the likes o’ me. I ain’t particular.”

“No, but you may as well have what you like for dinner.”

“Oh, I ain’t particular. Have just what you like. But if there was a morsel o’ tripe on the way I might pick a bit.”

“Good!” said the other, smiling, “you shall have some tripe for dinner for one thing.”

“Don’t you get letting it be got o’ purpose for me. Anything’ll do for me – a bit o’ sooetty pudden, for instance.”

“All right, Rasp. Tripe and suet pudding on Sunday week.”

“If ever there was,” said Rasp, thoughtfully, as he made an offer to get at the poker, “a woman as was made to be a beautiful angel, and didn’t turn out to be one because they forgot her wings, that’s your missus, Master Dutch.”

“Thank you, Rasp, old fellow, thank you,” said the young man, smiling; and his eyes brightened as he listened to this homely praise of the woman he worshipped.

“But what’s a puzzle to me,” continued the old fellow, with a grim chuckle, “is how she as is so soft, and fair, and dark-haired, and gentle, could take up with such a strong, broad-shouldered chap as you, Mr Dutch.”

“Yes, it was strange,” said the young man.

“I should more like have expected to see you pair off wi’ Captain Studwick’s lass – Miss Bessy. Now, she’s a fine gal, if you like.”

“Yes, she’s a fine, handsome girl, Rasp; and her father’s very proud of her, too.”

“I should just think he ought to be,” said Rasp. “Why, it’s my belief, if any chap offended her, she’d give him such a clap aside o’ the head as would make his ears ring.”

“I don’t know about that, Rasp,” laughed the other; “but I do believe whoever wins her will have a true-hearted Englishwoman for his wife.”

“O’ course he will, else she wouldn’t be the skipper’s lass. Bless her! – she’s always got a nice, pleasant word to say to a man when she comes here with her father. He used to think you meant to make up to her, Master Dutch.”

“Nonsense, man, nonsense!”

“Oh, but he did; and then this other affair came off. I never could understand it, though.”

“Ah, it was a problem, eh?” laughed the younger man.