The Island by Richard Whiteing — Read

Business over, our pleasures begin. They are to stay only three clear days in all, and we must make the most of them, putting as much into every precious hour as though it were to be our last of joy.

We visit the ship. She invites us to a party, puts on a little bunting for the occasion, and fires a gun. Everybody goes. The Captain is aboard, and makes believe he has never been ashore, shaking hands with us as we climb the side, though he left us but an hour ago. He wears his cocked hat and epaulettes, by special request; his officers, too, have not been sparing of their best. His crew, subdued to the most mealy-mouthed propriety of speech by such glimpses as they have had of the Island life, entertain us with a concert. It is the forecastle fiddle and accordion, with the repertory of the cockney music-halls. This last seems to lose vitality on our pure uplands, and to gasp for the breath of its native fen. Our good folk listen to ‘Blow me up an apple-tree,' or ‘Did 'em do it, did 'em, did 'em did 'em do? ' believing it must be right, because it is English, yet beginning to doubt -- not us, however, but themselves, beautiful first form of the doubt of candid souls! Some of the songs are too far away from them for even the glimmerings of comprehension -- the humour of the mere sordidness of life. ‘Penny paper-collar Joe. ' -- Well, they wear no collars; consequently, they make no paper imitations; consequently, these cost neither a penny nor a pound. For the same reason, ‘O father, dear father, the brokers are in! ' leaves them stone-cold. ‘What are the brokers? ' whispers Victoria to me. How curious to have to expound these elementary things! ‘Hush, Victoria, not now -- when they are gone -- it would take all day. Listen to the ballads of the people. ' Next it is a fantasia of punning effects: