Dutch the Diver

STORY ONE--DUTCH THE DIVER.

AT THE DIVER'S OFFICE.

"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?"

"1022703305"

Dutch the Diver