The astonishing history of Troy town Author:Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. OF A BLUE-JERSEYED MAN THAT WOULD HOIST NO MORK BRICKS J AND A NIGHTCAP THAT HAD NO BUSINESS TO BE WHERE IT WAS. No one acquainted with the ch... more »aracter of that extraordinary town will be surprised when I say that, within an hour after the occurrences related in the last chapter, Troy had resumed its workday quiet. By two o'clock nothing was to be heard but the tick-tack of mallets in the ship-building yards, the puffing of the steam-tug, the rattle of hawsers among the vessels out in the harbour, and the melodious " Woo-hoo!" of a crew at capstan or windlass. Troy in carnival and Troy sober are as opposite, you must know, as the poles. Fun is all very well, but business is business, and Troy is a trading port with a character to keep up: for who has not heard the bye-word—" Working like a Trojan"? At two o'clock on this same day a little schooner lay alongside the town quay, busily discharging brick r.. That is to say, a sunburnt man, blue-jerseyed and red with brick-dust, leisurely turned a windlass which let down an empty bucket and brought it up full. Another blue-jerseyed man, also sunburnt and red with brick-dust, then palled it on shore, emptied and returnedit; and the operation was repeated. A choleric little man, of about fifty, presumably the proprietor of the bricks, stood on the edge of the quay, and swore alternately at the man with the windlass and the man ashore. " Look 'ere," said the man at the windlass, after a bit, " Stop cussin'. This ain't a hurdy-gurdy, and if you expec's music you'll have to toss us a copper." The owner of the bricks swore worse than ever. Bound went the windlass1 as leisurely as might be, and another bucketful was hoisted ashore. The man on deck spat on his hands, and broke into cheerful song:— " Was you iv...« less