He was a rude
common man. But I liked listening. I always helped drink any
healths that was proposed - specially Citizen Danton's who'd cut
off King Louis' head. An all-Englishman might have been
shocked - but that's where my French blood saved me.
'It didn't save me from getting a dose of ship's fever though, the
week before we put Monsieur Genet ashore at Charleston; and
what was left of me after bleeding and pills took the dumb horrors
from living 'tween decks. The surgeon, Karaguen his name was,
kept me down there to help him with his plasters - I was too weak
to wait on Bompard. I don't remember much of any account for
the next few weeks, till I smelled lilacs, and I looked out of the
port, and we was moored to a wharf-edge and there was a town o'
fine gardens and red-brick houses and all the green leaves o' God's
world waiting for me outside.
'"What's this?" I said to the sick-bay man - Old Pierre
Tiphaigne he was. "Philadelphia," says Pierre. "You've missed it
all. We're sailing next week. "
'I just turned round and cried for longing to be amongst
the laylocks.
'"If that's your trouble," says old Pierre, "you go straight
ashore.
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