A green baize tablecloth covered the cask from
sight, and partially muffled the sound of its running tap when
Stimcoe withdrew behind the screen, to consult (as he put it) his
lexicon.
His one assistant, who figured in the prospectus as "Teacher of
English, the Mathematics, and Navigation," was a retired
packet-captain, Branscome by name, but known among us as Captain
Gamey, by reason of an injured leg. He had taken the hurt--a
splintered hip-bone--while fighting his ship against a French
privateer off Guadeloupe, and it had retired him from the service of
my lords the Postmaster-General upon a very small pension, and with a
sword of honour subscribed for by the merchants of the City of
London, whose mails he had gallantly saved. These resources being
barely sufficient to maintain him, still less to permit his helping a
widowed sister whom he had partly maintained during his days of
service, he eked them out by school mastering; and a dreadful trade
he must have found it. In person he was slight and wiry, of a clear,
ruddy complexion, with grey hair, and a grave simplicity of manner.
He wore a tightly buttoned, blue uniform coat, threadbare and frayed,
but scrupulously brushed, noticeably clean linen, and white duck
trousers in all weathers.
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