The nails were discoloured and black, while the skin was already
grained with dirt which even a scrubbing-brush could not remove.
Then blisters came, in a painful and never-ending procession, and I
had a great burn on my forearm, acquired by losing my balance in a
roll of the ship and pitching against the galley stove. Nor was my
knee any better. The swelling had not gone down, and the cap was
still up on edge. Hobbling about on it from morning till night was
not helping it any. What I needed was rest, if it were ever to get
well.

Rest! I never before knew the meaning of the word. I had been
resting all my life and did not know it. But now, could I sit
still for one half-hour and do nothing, not even think, it would be
the most pleasurable thing in the world. But it is a revelation,
on the other hand. I shall be able to appreciate the lives of the
working people hereafter. I did not dream that work was so
terrible a thing. From half-past five in the morning till ten
o'clock at night I am everybody's slave, with not one moment to
myself, except such as I can steal near the end of the second dog-
watch. Let me pause for a minute to look out over the sea
sparkling in the sun, or to gaze at a sailor going aloft to the
gaff-topsails, or running out the bowsprit, and I am sure to hear
the hateful voice, "'Ere, you, 'Ump, no sodgerin'. I've got my
peepers on yer."

There are signs of rampant bad temper in the steerage, and the
gossip is going around that Smoke and Henderson have had a fight.
Henderson seems the best of the hunters, a slow-going fellow, and
hard to rouse; but roused he must have been, for Smoke had a
bruised and discoloured eye, and looked particularly vicious when