Joseph Conrad

“ Schomberg looked down at him dumbly. For a few seconds neither of them stirred; then Ricardo lowered his glance, and, opening his fingers, let the whole pack fall on the table. Schomberg sat down. He sat down because of the faintness in his legs, and for no other reason. His mouth was dry. Having sat down, he felt that he must speak. He squared his shoulders in parade style.
"You are pretty good at that sort of thing," he said.
"Practice makes perfect," replied the secretary.
His precarious amiability made it impossible for Schomberg to get away. ”

“ With a gentleman you know at once where you are; but it was a ticklish job. The skipper was nothing to me one way or another, any more than you are at this moment, Mr. Schomberg. You may light your cigar or blow your brains out this minute, and I don't care a hang which you do, both or neither. To bring the skipper up was easy enough. I had only to stamp on the deck a few times over his head. ”

“ Ricardo tossed up his chin to indicate the room above; from which Schomberg, his wits painfully aroused by this reminder of Mr. Jones's existence, concluded that the latter had withdrawn into his bedroom. Ricardo, observing him from under lowered eyelids, went on:
"It so happened that we were shipmates."
"Mr Jones, you mean? Is he a sailor too?"
Ricardo raised his eyelids at that.
"He's no more Mr. Jones than you are," he said with obvious pride. "He a sailor! That just shows your ignorance. But there! A foreigner can't be expected to know any better. ”

“ Schomberg was almost compelled to keep to the subject.
"I suppose you've always been so--from your early youth."
Ricardo's eyes remained cast down. His fingers toyed absently with the pack on the table.
"I don't know that it was so early. I first got in the way of it playing for tobacco--in forecastles of ships, you know--common sailor games. We used to spend whole watches below at it, round a chest, under a slush lamp. We would hardly spare the time to get a bite of salt horse--neither eat nor sleep. We could hardly stand when the watches were mustered on deck. Talk of gambling!" ”

“ The consciousness of his inwardly abject attitude towards these men caused him always to throw his chest out and assume a severe expression. Ricardo watched his approach, clasping the pack of cards in both hands.
"You want something, perhaps?" suggested Schomberg in his lieutenant-of-the-Reserve voice.
Ricardo shook his head in silence and looked expectant. With him Schomberg exchanged at least twenty words every day. He was infinitely more communicative than his patron. At times he looked very much like an ordinary human being of his class ”

“ He would give any woman a ten-mile berth. He can't stand them. Or maybe in a flash bar. Or maybe in one of them grand clubs in Pall Mall. Anyway, the agent netted him in all right--cash down, and only about four and twenty hours for him to get ready; but he didn't miss his ship. Not he! You might have called it a pier-head jump--for a gentleman. I saw him come along. Know the West India Docks, eh?"
Schomberg did not know the West India Docks. Ricardo looked at him pensively for a while, and then continued, as if such ignorance had to be disregarded. ”

“ They had to pass the time away somehow. By the same token he caught me at it once, and it was then that I told him I was fond of cards--and generally lucky in gambling, too. Yes, he had sized me up. Why not? A gentleman's just like any other man--and something more."
It flashed through Schomberg's mind: that these two were indeed well matched in their enormous dissimilarity, identical souls in different disguises.
"Says he to me"--Ricardo started again in a gossiping manner--'I'm packed up. ”

“ I am an Englishman, and I know a gentleman at sight. I should know one drunk, in the gutter, in jail, under the gallows. There's a something--it isn't exactly the appearance, it's a--no use me trying to tell you. You ain't an Englishman, and if you were, you wouldn't need to be told. ”

“ Up he jumps, one leap, swings his long legs over the rail, and there he is on board. They pass up his swell dunnage, and he puts his hand in his trousers pocket and throws all his small change on the wharf for them chaps to pick up. They were still promenading that wharf on all fours when we cast off. ”