“Drunk again!” screamed the parrot, as I hesitated before the entrance, for the directing-marks just here were so numerous as to be perplexing.  To the right of the alley the barber had affixed his signboard, close above the base of his pole; to the left a flanking slopshop dangled a row of cast-off suits, while immediately overhead was nailed a board painted over with ornate flourishes and the legend—­

      “G.  Goodfellow.  Carpenter and House-Decorator, &c. 
       Repairs Neatly Executed.  Instruction in the Violin. 
       Funerals at the Shortest Notice.  Shipping Supplied.”

“Drunk again!” repeated the parrot.  “Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!  Oh, you nasty image!  Kiss me, kiss me!  Who killed the Portugee?”

“He don’t mean you,” explained the barber, reassuringly, emerging at that moment from his shop with a pannikin of water for the parrot’s cage, which he lowered very deftly by means of a halliard reeved through a block at the end of the pole.  “He means old Coffin.  Nice bird, hey?”

He slipped a hand through the cage-door, and caressed him, scratching his head.

“If you please, sir,” said I, “it’s Captain Coffin I’m looking for.”

“Drunk again!” screamed the bird.  “Damn my giblets, drunk again!”

“He don’t like Coffin, and that’s a fact,” said the barber.

“He don’t appear to, sir,” I agreed.

“You’ll find the old fellow down the yard.  That is, if you really want him.”  The barber eyed me doubtfully.  “He’s sober enough, just now; been swearin off liquor for a week.  I dare say you know his temper’s uncertain at such times.”

I did not know it, but was too far committed to retreat.

“Well, you’ll find him down the yard—­green door to the right, with the brass knocker.  He’s out at the back, hammering at his ship, but he’ll hear you fast enough:  he’s wonderful quick of hearing.”

A man, even though he possessed a solid brass knocker, had need to be quick of hearing in that alley.  Without, street-hawkers were bawling and carts rattling on the cobbled thoroughfare; from the entrance the parrot vociferated after me as I went down the passage beneath an open window whence an invisible violin repeated the opening phrase of “Come, cheer up, my lads!” plaintively and persistently; while from the far end, somewhere between it and the harbour side, an irregular hammering punctuated the music.

I knocked, and the hammering ceased.  The rest of the din ceased not, nor abated.  In about a minute the green door opened—­a cautious inch or two at first, then wide enough to reveal Captain Coffin.  He wore a dirty white jumper over his upper garments, and held a formidable mallet.  I observed that either his face was unnaturally white or the rims of his eyes were unnaturally red, and that sawdust besprinkled his hair and collar.  I recalled the tavern sawdust which had bepowdered his hat on the night of our first meeting, and jumped to a wrong conclusion.