well for such rude fellows, to the music of a guitar and a tambourine.
And so when our pots came to be replenished a second time, we were all
mighty merry and agreeable save Jack Dawson, who never could take his
liquor like any other man, but must fall into some extravagant humour,
and he, I perceived, regarded some of the company with a very sour,
jealous eye because, being warmed with drink, they fell to casting
glances at Moll with a certain degree of familiarity. Especially there
was one fellow with a hook nose, who stirred his bile exceedingly,
sitting with his elbows on the table and his jaws in his hands, and
would scarcely shift his eyes from Moll. And since he could not make his
displeasure understood in words, and so give vent to it and be done,
Jack sat there in sullen silence watching for an opportunity to show his
resentment in some other fashion. The other saw this well enough, but
would not desist, and so these two sat fronting each other like two dogs
ready to fly at each other's throats. At length, the hook-nosed rascal,
growing bolder with his liquor, rises as if to reach for his wine pot,
and stretching across the table, chucks Moll under the chin with his
grimy fingers. At this Jack flinging out his great fist with all the
force of contained passion, catches the other right in the middle of the
face, with such effect that the fellow flies clean back over his bench,
his head striking the pavement with a crash. Then, in an instant, all
his fellows spring to their feet, and a dozen long knives flash out from
their sheaths.




CHAPTER IX.