The Moon and Sixpence

part, could not do without it; he took to hunting
the “Can o’ Beer,” for cigarette-ends and the
butt-end of cigars which the promenaders of the
night before had thrown away.
“I’ve tasted worse smoking mixtures in a
pipe,” he added, with a philosophic shrug of his
shoulders, as he took a couple of cigars from the
case I offered him, putting one in his mouth and

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184
The Moon and Sixpence
the other in his pocket.
Now and then they made a bit of money. Some-
times a mail steamer would come in, and Cap-
tain Nichols, having scraped acquaintance with
the timekeeper, would succeed in getting the pair
of them a job as stevedores. When it was an En-
glish boat, they would dodge into the forecastle
and get a hearty breakfast from the crew. They
took the risk of running against one of the ship’s
officers and being hustled down the gangway
with the toe of a boot to speed their going.
“There’s no harm in a kick in the hindquar-
ters when your belly’s full,” said Captain
Nichols, “and personally I never take it in bad
part. An officer’s got to think about discipline.”
I had a lively picture of Captain Nichols flying
headlong down a narrow gangway before the
uplifted foot of an angry mate, and, like a true
Englishman, rejoicing in the spirit of the Mer-
cantile Marine.
There were often odd jobs to be got about the
fish-market. Once they each of them earned a
franc by loading trucks with innumerable boxes
of oranges that had been dumped down on the
quay. One day they had a stroke of luck: one of
the boarding-masters got a contract to paint a
tramp that had come in from Madagascar round
the Cape of Good Hope, and they spent several
days on a plank hanging over the side, covering
the rusty hull with paint. It was a situation that
must have appealed to Strickland’s sardonic
humour. I asked Captain Nichols how he bore
himself during these hardships.
“Never knew him say a cross word,” answered
the Captain. “He’d be a bit surly sometimes,
but when we hadn’t had a bite since morning,
and we hadn’t even got the price of a lie down
at the Chink’s, he’d be as lively as a cricket.”
I was not surprised at this. Strickland was just
the man to rise superior to circumstances, when
they were such as to occasion despondency in
most; but whether this was due to equanimity

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185
Somerset Maugham
of soul or to contradictoriness it would be diffi-
cult to say.
The Chink’s Head was a name the beach-comb-
ers gave to a wretched inn off the Rue Bouterie,
kept by a one-eyed Chinaman, where for six sous
you could sleep in a cot and for three on the floor.
Here they made friends with others in as desper-
ate condition as themselves, and when they were
penniless and the night was bitter cold, they
were glad to borrow from anyone who had
earned a stray franc during the day the price of
a roof over their heads. They were not niggardly,
these tramps, and he who had money did not
hesitate to share it among the rest. They be-
longed to all the countries in the world, but this
was no bar to good-fellowship; for they felt them-
selves freemen of a country whose frontiers in-
clude them all, the great country of Cockaine.
“But I guess Strickland was an ugly customer
when he was roused,” said Captain Nichols, re-
flectively. “One day we ran into Tough Bill in the
Place, and he asked Charlie for the papers he’d
given him.”
“`You’d better come and take them if you want
them,’ says Charlie.
“He was a powerful fellow, Tough Bill, but he
didn’t quite like the look of Charlie, so he began
cursing him. He called him pretty near every name
he could lay hands on, and when Tough Bill be-
gan cursing it was worth listening to him. Well,
Charlie stuck it for a bit, then he stepped forward
and he just said: `Get out, you bloody swine.’ It
wasn’t so much what he said, but the way he
said it. Tough Bill never spoke another word; you
could see him go yellow, and he walked away as if
he’d remembered he had a date.”
Strickland, according to Captain Nichols, did
not use exactly the words I have given, but since
this book is meant for family reading I have
thought it better, at the expense of truth, to put
into his mouth expressions familiar to the do-
mestic circle.

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186
The Moon and Sixpence
Now, Tough Bill was not the man to put up with
humiliation at the hands of a common sailor. His
power depended on his prestige, and first one,
then another, of the sailors who lived in his house
told them that he had sworn to do Strickland in.
One night Captain Nichols and Strickland were
sitting in one of the bars of the Rue Bouterie.
The Rue Bouterie is a narrow street of one-sto-
reyed houses, each house consisting of but one
room; they are like the booths in a crowded fair
or the cages of animals in a circus. At every door
you see a woman. Some lean lazily against the
side-posts, humming to themselves or calling to
the passer-by in a raucous voice, and some list-
lessly read. They are French. Italian, Spanish,
Japanese, coloured; some are fat and some are
thin; and under the thick paint on their faces,
the heavy smears on their eyebrows, and the
scarlet of their lips, you see the lines of age and
the scars of dissipation. Some wear black shifts
and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly
hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in
short muslin frocks. Through the open door you
see a red-tiled floor, a large wooden bed, and on
a deal table a ewer and a basin. A motley crowd
saunters along the streets — Lascars off a P. and
O., blond Northmen from a Swedish barque, Japa-
nese from a man-of-war, English sailors, Span-
iards, pleasant-looking fellows from a French
cruiser, negroes off an American tramp. By day
it is merely sordid, but at night, lit only by the
lamps in the little huts, the street has a sinister
beauty. The hideous lust that pervades the air is
oppressive and horrible, and yet there is some-
thing mysterious in the sight which haunts and
troubles you. You feel I know not what primitive
force which repels and yet fascinates you. Here
all the decencies of civilisation are swept away,
and you feel that men are face to face with a
sombre reality. There is an atmosphere that is at
once intense and tragic.
In the bar in which Strickland and Nichols sat

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187
Somerset Maugham
a mechanical piano was loudly grinding out dance
music. Round the room people were sitting at
table, here half a dozen sailors uproariously
drunk, there a group of soldiers; and in the
middle, crowded together, couples were dancing.
Bearded sailors with brown faces and large horny
hands clasped their partners in a tight embrace.
The women wore nothing but a shift. Now and
then two sailors would get up and dance together.
The noise was deafening. People were singing,
shouting, laughing; and when a man gave a long
kiss to the girl sitting on his knees, cat-calls from
the English sailors increased the din. The air was
heavy with the dust beaten up by the heavy boots
of the men, and gray with smoke. It was very
hot. Behind the bar was seated a woman nurs-
ing her baby. The waiter, an undersized youth
with a flat, spotty face, hurried to and fro carry-
ing a tray laden with glasses of beer.
In a little while Tough Bill, accompanied by two
huge negroes, came in, and it was easy to see
that he was already three parts drunk. He was
looking for trouble. He lurched against a table at
which three soldiers were sitting and knocked
over a glass of beer. There was an angry alterca-
tion, and the owner of the bar stepped forward
and ordered Tough Bill to go. He was a hefty fel-
low, in the habit of standing no nonsense from
his customers, and Tough Bill hesitated. The land-
lord was not a man he cared to tackle, for the
police were on his side, and with an oath he
turned on his heel. Suddenly he caught sight of
Strickland. He rolled up to him. He did not speak.
He gathered the spittle in his mouth and spat
full in Strickland’s face. Strickland seized his
glass and flung it at him. The dancers stopped
suddenly still. There was an instant of complete
silence, but when Tough Bill threw himself on
Strickland the lust of battle seized them all, and
in a moment there was a confused scrimmage.
Tables were overturned, glasses crashed to the
ground. There was a hellish row. The women scat-

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188
The Moon and Sixpence
tered to the door and behind the bar. Passers-by
surged in from the street. You heard curses in
every tongue the sound of blows, cries; and in
the middle of the room a dozen men were fight-
ing with all their might. On a sudden the police
rushed in, and everyone who could made for the
door. When the bar was more or less cleared,
Tough Bill was lying insensible on the floor with
a great gash in his head. Captain Nichols dragged
Strickland, bleeding from a wound in his arm,
his clothes in rags, into the street. His own face
was covered with blood from a blow on the nose.
“I guess you’d better get out of Marseilles be-
fore Tough Bill comes out of hospital,” he said to
Strickland, when they had got back to the
Chink’s Head and were cleaning themselves.
“This beats cock-fighting,” said Strickland.
I could see his sardonic smile.
Captain Nichols was anxious. He knew Tough
Bill’s vindictiveness. Strickland had downed the
mulatto twice, and the mulatto, sober, was a man
to be reckoned with. He would bide his time
stealthily. He would be in no hurry, but one night
Strickland would get a knife-thrust in his back,
and in a day or two the corpse of a nameless
beach-comber would be fished out of the dirty
water of the harbour. Nichols went next evening
to Tough Bill’s house and made enquiries. He
was in hospital still, but his wife, who had been
to see him, said he was swearing hard to kill
Strickland when they let him out.
A week passed.
“That’s what I always say,” reflected Captain
Nichols, “when you hurt a man, hurt him bad. It
gives you a bit of time to look about and think
what you’ll do next.”
Then Strickland had a bit of luck. A ship bound
for Australia had sent to the Sailors’ Home for a
stoker in place of one who had thrown himself
overboard off Gibraltar in an attack of delirium
tremens.
“ You double down to the harbour, my lad,” said

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189
Somerset Maugham
the Captain to Strickland, “and sign on. Yo u ’ v e
got your papers.”
Strickland set off at once, and that was the last
Captain Nichols saw of him. The ship was only
in port for six hours, and in the evening Captain
Nichols watched the vanishing smoke from her
funnels as she ploughed East through the win-
try sea.
I have narrated all this as best I could, because
I like the contrast of these episodes with the life
that I had seen Strickland live in Ashley Gardens
when he was occupied with stocks and shares;
but I am aware that Captain Nichols was an out-
rageous liar, and I dare say there is not a word of
truth in anything he told me. I should not be
surprised to learn that he had never seen
Strickland in his life, and owed his knowledge of
Marseilles to the pages of a magazine.