59
Gaffer Hexam nodded. "But that's common. Whether it's the wash of the
tide or no, I can't say. Now here," moving the light to another similar
placard, "his pockets was found empty and turned inside out. And here,'
moving the light to another, "her pocket was found empty, and turned
inside out This one was a sailor, with two anchors and a flag and
G.F.T. on his arm. This one was the young woman in grey boots, and her
linen marked with a cross And this is him as had a nasty cut over
his eye. This is them two sisters what tied themselves together with a
handkecher. This is the drunken old chap, in a pair of list slippers
and a night cap, wot had offered it afterwards came out to make
a hole in the water for a quartern of rum stood aforehand, and kept
to his word for the first and the last time in his life".
Hexam had, of course, made shadowy appearances in earlier books. In
GREAT EXPECTATIONS (Chaper 54) he is there as the "jack" at the Ship
Inn. "No other company was in the house than the landlord, his wife,
ar.d a grizzled male creature, the "jack" of the little causeway, who
was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low water-mark too." Later
while Pip and his companions were comforting themselves by the fire
after their meal,, they again encountered the "jack" "who was sitting
in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes on, which he had
exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as interesting relics
that he had taken a few days earlier from the feet of a drowned seaman
washed ashore."
But Hexam had even earlier prototypes, namely the "couple of water
side men, bearing between them certain machines called drags' whom we
meet in quilp's sitting-room on the evening when he retumes home to find
that he has been „given up for dead. In this, one of the most comical
scenes in all Dickens, we find not only the originals of the 'bird of
prey', but work going ahead on the composition of a MISSING - BELIEVED
DROWNED notice.
"With regard to the descriptive advertisement," said Sampson Brass,
taking up his pen. "It is a melancholy pleasure te recall his traits.
Respecting his legs now
"Crooked, certainly," said Mrs Jiniwin.
"Do you think they were crooked?" said Brass, in an insinuating tone.
"I think I see them now coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen
pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps. Ah I what a vale of
tears we live in. Do we say crooked
