  He tottered out of the alleyway with cheeks the colour of paste, And shivered a spell and mopped his brow with a clout of cotton waste: ‘I’ve a lick of fever-chills,’ he said, ‘’n’ my inside it’s green, But I’d be as right as rain,’ he said, ‘if I had some quinine,— But there ain’t no quinine for us poor sailor-men. ‘But them there passengers,’ he said, ‘if they gets fever-chills, There’s brimmin’ buckets o’ quinine for them, ’n’ bulgin’ crates o’ pills, ’N’ a doctor with Latin ’n’ drugs ’n’ all—enough to sink a town, ’N’ they lies quiet in their blushin’ bunks ’n’ mops their gruel down,— ‘But the Chief comes forrard ’n’ he says, says he, “I gives you a straight tip: Come none o’ your Cape Horn fever lays aboard o’ this yer ship. On wi’ your rags o’ duds, my son, ’n’ aft, ’n’ down the hole: The best cure known for fever-chills is shovelling bloody coal.” It’s hard, my son, that’s what it is, for us poor sailor-men.’ |
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