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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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409 absent and dispirited. His thoughts were in his old home, and when they reverted to his present condition, the uncertainty of the morrow cast a gloom upon him, which his utmost efforts were unable to dispel. His attention wandered; although he heard the manager’s voice, he was deaf to what he said; and when Mr Vincent Crummles concluded the history of some long adventure with a loud laugh, and an inquiry what Nicholas would have done under the same circumstances, he was obliged to make the best apology in his power, and to confess his entire ignorance of all he had been talking about. ‘Why, so I saw,’ observed Mr Crummles. ‘You’re uneasy in your mind. What’s the matter?’ Nicholas could not refrain from smiling at the abruptness of the question; but, thinking it scarcely worth while to parry it, owned that he was under some apprehensions lest he might not succeed in the object which had brought him to that part of the country. ‘And what’s that?’ asked the manager. ‘Getting something to do which will keep me and my poor fellow-traveller in the common necessaries of life,’ said Nicholas. ‘That’s the truth. You guessed it long ago, I dare say, so I may as well have the credit of telling it you with a good grace.’ ‘What’s to be got to do at Portsmouth more than anywhere else?’ asked Mr Vincent Crummles, melting the sealing-wax on the stem of his pipe in the candle, and rolling it out afresh with his little finger. ‘There are many vessels leaving the port, I suppose,’ replied Nicholas. ‘I shall try for a berth in some ship or other. There is meat and drink there at all events.’ ‘Salt meat and new rum; pease-pudding and chaff-biscuits,’ said |
