{"id":"01KG8AKTW6XYW06TSAAJYRS76X","cid":"bafkreihvdvte3qrpfjgptbhakemnnvsovmpawxcqljvpiowhk5cjszufhu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1949,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.149Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","start_line":1880,"text":"moody and miserable is naturally enough an utter neglect of his toilet.\r\n\r\nThe sailors perhaps ought to make allowances; but heartless as they\r\nare, they do not. No sooner is his cleanliness questioned than they\r\nrise upon him like a mob of the Middle Ages upon a Jew; drag him into\r\nthe lee-scuppers, and strip him to the buff. In vain he bawls for\r\nmercy; in vain calls upon the captain to save him.\r\n\r\nAlas! I say again, for the land-lubber at sea. He is the veriest wretch\r\nthe watery world over. And such was Rope Tarn; of all landlubbers, the\r\nmost lubberly and most miserable. A forlorn, stunted, hook-visaged\r\nmortal he was too; one of those whom you know at a glance to have been\r\ntried hard and long in the furnace of affliction. His face was an\r\nabsolute puzzle; though sharp and sallow, it had neither the wrinkles\r\nof age nor the smoothness of youth; so that for the soul of me, I could\r\nhardly tell whether he was twenty-five or fifty.\r\n\r\nBut to his history. In his better days, it seems he had been a\r\njourneyman baker in London, somewhere about Holborn; and on Sundays\r\nwore a Hue coat and metal buttons, and spent his afternoons in a\r\ntavern, smoking his pipe and drinking his ale like a free and easy\r\njourneyman baker that he was. But this did not last long; for an\r\nintermeddling old fool was the ruin of him. He was told that London\r\nmight do very well for elderly gentlemen and invalids; but for a lad of\r\nspirit, Australia was the Land of Promise. In a dark day Ropey wound up\r\nhis affairs and embarked.\r\n\r\nArriving in Sydney with a small capital, and after a while waxing snug\r\nand comfortable by dint of hard kneading, he took unto himself a wife;\r\nand so far as she was concerned, might then have gone into the country\r\nand retired; for she effectually did his business. In short, the lady\r\nworked him woe in heart and pocket; and in the end, ran off with his\r\ntill and his foreman. Ropey went to the sign of the Pipe and Tankard;\r\ngot fuddled; and over his fifth pot meditated suicide—an intention\r\ncarried out; for the next day he shipped as landsman aboard the Julia,\r\nSouth Seaman.\r\n\r\nThe ex-baker would have fared far better, had it not been for his\r\nheart, which was soft and underdone. A kind word made a fool of him;\r\nand hence most of the scrapes he got into. Two or three wags, aware of\r\nhis infirmity, used to “draw him out” in conversation whenever the most\r\ncrabbed and choleric old seamen were present.\r\n\r\nTo give an instance. The watch below, just waked from their sleep, are\r\nall at breakfast; and Ropey, in one corner, is disconsolately partaking\r\nof its delicacies. “Now, sailors newly waked are no cherubs; and\r\ntherefore not a word is spoken, everybody munching his biscuit, grim\r\nand unshaven. At this juncture an affable-looking scamp—Flash\r\nJack—crosses the forecastle, tin can in hand, and seats himself beside\r\nthe land-lubber.\r\n\r\n“Hard fare this, Ropey,” he begins; “hard enough, too, for them that’s\r\nknown better and lived in Lun’nun. I say now, Ropey, s’posing you were\r\nback to Holborn this morning, what would you have for breakfast, eh?”\r\n\r\n“Have for breakfast!” cried Ropey in a rapture. “Don’t speak of it!”\r\n\r\n“What ails that fellow?” here growled an old sea-bear, turning round\r\nsavagely.\r\n\r\n“Oh, nothing, nothing,” said Jack; and then, leaning over to Rope Yarn,\r\nhe bade him go on, but speak lower.\r\n\r\n“Well, then,” said he, in a smuggled tone, his eyes lighting up like\r\ntwo lanterns, “well, then, I’d go to Mother Moll’s that makes the great\r\nmuffins: I’d go there, you know, and cock my foot on the ’ob, and call\r\nfor a noggin o’ somethink to begin with.”\r\n\r\n“What then, Ropey?”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJH07MQM35VETZATZ3R3G","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1H7Y803CZ7X80F0QFHZ","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKT6AYQEDA848RJQ07HE5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKTVZGT2H4AP0D3HJM370","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:17.286Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:24.419Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}