Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/271

Afterwards, of course, came repentance and the pledge.

Now this general routine was followed, with occasional lapses when he was in prison, for quite a long time. It went on, as a matter of fact, for as long as Fleming's cousin was foreman, then he got the sack for "talkin'," as Slanty put it.

Some of the words Fleming used no one could understand, but they cut for all that. Most men can stand for a few swear words that are familiar to them, but there is something sinister and ugly in bad language when you don't know what it means.

"They come fro' Hull, an' that explains it," Slanty Joe used to say. Though how that explained it no one quite gathered. According to Slanty, on the fishing-grounds men never refer to the dictionary, because only fifty per cent. of the words they use are to be found in that remarkable book. The other fifty per cent. no one will print, and it was in the use of this second fifty that Fleming excelled.

"'Tisn't as if Oi'd said annythin'—not really to say annythin'," said Fleming, when he was telling of the affair later. "Oi just called the crayther a pot-bellied, skew-backed, splay-footed, bandy-legged, squint-eyed son of a cat-fish. Oi said that if Oi’d ever used such stuff as himsilf for bait, all the little fishes in the North Say would ha' been insulted an' would ha' emigrated to Ameriky. Oi just suggested, all kindlyways, that he ought to"—— But why go on? I can only give Fleming's mildest and poorest tellings. The cream of his discourse would set this page on fire. . . . So he was sacked and was, in a way, on our hands.

After walking round for some days looking for a job, Fleming became filled with the desire to return to Hull and the rough North Sea. "Or'll be at home there," he said. "Oi know the place. Oi can undherstand what's what, and the bhoys undherstand me."

The problem was how to get him there. Money there was none, and tramping was too bad for Fleming; out of the question, in fact; there was a foot of snow in the country districts at that time of the year. At last the right idea struck Slanty Joe. Every night a wagon of goods left the docks for Hull. The load generally consisted of large cases or bales with a few oddments crammed in between. So one evening Fleming hoisted himself on the top of the load under the tarpaulin sheet. Slanty had taken the precaution of placing a large bale of woollens at either end, so Fleming had a sort of lair.

Unfortunately, just before the train was made up, a few small