The Rival Beauties Page #3

"The Rival Beauties" by W. W. Jacobs is a humorous novella that explores themes of love, jealousy, and rivalry through the antics of two charming yet competing women. Set against the backdrop of a quaint seaside village, the story delves into the lives and interactions of its colorful characters, revealing the lengths to which they will go to impress their romantic interests. Jacobs’s witty prose and keen observations of human nature create an entertaining and lighthearted narrative that highlights the complexities of attraction and the folly of rivalry.

• Fiction

								

o’clock that night it was so close I could have reached it with a
clothes-prop.

“I think I’d been abed about ’arf-an-hour when I was awoke by the most
infernal row I ever heard. The foghorn was going incessantly, an’ there
was a lot o’ shouting and running about on deck. It struck us all as
’ow the sarpint was gitting tired o’ bread, and was misbehaving
himself, consequently we just shoved our ’eds out o’ the fore-scuttle
and listened. All the hullaballoo seemed to be on the bridge, an’ as we
didn’t see the sarpint there we plucked up courage and went on deck.

“Then we saw what had happened. Joe had ’ad another fit while at the
wheel, and, not knowing what he was doing, had clutched the line of
the foghorn, and was holding on to it like grim death, and kicking
right and left. The skipper was in his bedclothes, raving worse than
Joe; and just as we got there Joe came round a bit, and, letting go o’
the line, asked in a faint voice what the foghorn was blowing for. I
thought the skipper ’ud have killed him; but the second mate held him
back, an’, of course, when things quieted down a bit, an’ we went to
the side, we found the sea-sarpint had vanished.

“We stayed there all that night, but it warn’t no use. When day broke
there wasn’t the slightest trace of it, an’ I think the men was as
sorry to lose it as the officers. All ’cept Joe, that is, which shows
how people should never be rude, even to the humblest; for I’m sartin
that if the skipper hadn’t hurt his feelings the way he did we should
now know as much about the sea-sarpint as we do about our own
brothers.”
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