Read "Self-Help" by W.W. Jacobs online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The night-watchman sat brooding darkly over life and its troubles. A / shooting corn on the little toe of his left foot, and a touch of liver, / due, he was convinced, to the unlawful cellar work of the landlord of / the Queen's Head, had induced in him a vein of profound depression. A / discarded boot stood by his side, and his gray-stockinged foot protruded / over the edge of the jetty until a passing waterman gave it a playful / rap with his oar. A subsequent inquiry as to the price of pigs' trotters / fell on ears rendered deaf by suffering.
"I might 'ave expected it," said the watchman, at last. "I done that / man-if you can call him a man-a kindness once, and this is my reward for / it. Do a man a kindness, and years arterwards 'e comes along and hits / you over your tenderest corn with a oar."