Dick was
delighted
at it.
Kipling - Poems
And the sea roared or was still as the winds blew, and the engines sang
their song day and night, and the sun grew stronger day by day, and
Tom the Lascar barber shaved Dick of a morning under the opened
hatch-grating where the cool winds blew, and the awnings were spread and
the passengers made merry, and at last they came to Port Said.
"Take me," said Dick, to the doctor, "to Madame Binat's--if you know
where that is. "
"Whew! " said the doctor, "I do. There's not much to choose between 'em;
but I suppose you're aware that that's one of the worst houses in the
place. They'll rob you to begin with, and knife you later. "
"Not they. Take me there, and I can look after myself. "
So he was brought to Madame Binat's and filled his nostrils with the
well-remembered smell of the East, that runs without a change from the
Canal head to Hong-Kong, and his mouth with the villainous Lingua Franca
of the Levant. The heat smote him between the shoulder-blades with
the buffet of an old friend, his feet slipped on the sand, and his
coat-sleeve was warm as new-baked bread when he lifted it to his nose.
Madame Binat smiled with the smile that knows no astonishment when Dick
entered the drinking-shop which was one source of her gains. But for a
little accident of complete darkness he could hardly realise that he
had ever quitted the old life that hummed in his ears. Somebody opened
a bottle of peculiarly strong Schiedam. The smell reminded Dick of
Monsieur Binat, who, by the way, had spoken of art and degradation.
Binat was dead; Madame said as much when the doctor departed,
scandalised, so far as a ship's doctor can be, at the warmth of Dick's
reception.
Dick was delighted at it. "They remember me here after a
year. They have forgotten me across the water by this time. Madame, I
want a long talk with you when you're at liberty. It is good to be back
again. "
In the evening she set an iron-topped cafe-table out on the sands, and
Dick and she sat by it, while the house behind them filled with riot,
merriment, oaths, and threats. The stars came out and the lights of the
shipping in the harbour twinkled by the head of the Canal.
"Yes. The war is good for trade, my friend; but what dost thou do here?
We have not forgotten thee. "
"I was over there in England and I went blind. "
"But there was the glory first. We heard of it here, even here--I
and Binat; and thou hast used the head of Yellow 'Tina--she is still
alive--so often and so well that 'Tina laughed when the papers arrived
by the mail-boats. It was always something that we here could recognise
in the paintings. And then there was always the glory and the money for
thee. "
"I am not poor--I shall pay you well.
