He has glassy eyes, puffed and bagged with flesh; heavy black
eyebrows half-way up his sloping forehead; a heavy black moustache under
his strong nose; a tongue several sizes too large for his mouth; and
under the mouth a chin which recedes so sharply that it becomes neck
before you are really aware that it is chin. He reminds us a little, as
he sits there laughing and chuckling, of early caricatures of Sir
Redvers Buller.
Opposite Old Joe sits Mr. Wells, a little old white-haired gentleman,
very spruce and tidy, with neatly clipped moustache and neatly pointed
beard, and peering little cloudy eyes which are sightless.
* * * * *
The two old gentlemen, as they are called, live together in a tiny
two-roomed house in a narrow flagged court which is generally strung
with washing. The low-roofed kitchen is their sitting-room, and its
smoky-panelled walls are decorated only with church almanacs and a few
faded photographs.
The room is beautifully clean, and so is the bedroom above, where the
two pensioners sleep in neat little beds. Out of the money allowed them
by a neighbouring church--some nine shillings a week between the
two--they pay a woman five shillings a week "to do for them." As for
themselves, they smoke their pipes in front of the fire, and laugh to
find themselves, after much rough work on the high seas, so happy and
jolly at the end of their days.
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