Arter that she treated me as if I was the dirt beneath 'er feet. She
never spoke to me, but used to speak against me to other people. She
was always talking to them about the "sleeping-sickness" and things o'
that kind. She said night-watchmen always made 'er think of it somehow,
but she didn't know why, and she couldn't tell you if you was to ask
her. The only thing I was thankful for was that I wasn't 'er husband.
She stuck to 'im like his shadow, and I began to think at last it was a
pity she 'adn't got some thing to be jealous about and something to
occupy her mind with instead o' me.
"She ought to 'ave a lesson," I ses to the skipper one evening. "Are
you going to be follered about like this all your life? If she was made
to see the foolishness of 'er ways she might get sick of it."
My idea was to send her on a wild-goose chase, and while the Wild Rose
was away I thought it out. I wrote a love-letter to the skipper signed
with the name of "Dorothy," and asked 'im to meet me at Cleopatra's
Needle on the Embankment at eight o'clock on Wednesday. I told 'im to
look out for a tall girl (Mrs. Smithers was as short as they make 'em)
with mischievous brown eyes, in a blue 'at with red roses on it.
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