for seven years.

I had held a mate's berth, and as I did not care to ship before the mast
on the first vessel bound out, I had remained ashore until a threatening
landlord made it necessary for me to become less particular as to
occupation.

It was a time when mates were plenty and men were few, so I made the
rounds of the shipping houses with little hope of getting a chance to
show my papers. These, together with an old quadrant, a nautical almanac,
a thick pea coat, and a pipe, were all I possessed of this world's goods,
and I carried the quadrant with me in case I should not succeed in
signing on. I could "spout it," if need be, at some broker's, and thus
raise a few dollars.

As I made my way along the water front, I noticed a fine clipper ship of
nearly two thousand tons lying at a wharf. She was in the hands of a few
riggers, who were sending aloft her canvas, which, being of a snowy
whiteness, proclaimed her nationality even before I could see her hull.
On reaching the wharf where she lay, I stopped and noticed that she was
loaded deep, for her long black sides were under to within four feet of
her main deck in the waist.

Her high bulwarks shut off my view of her deck; but, from the sounds that
came down from there, I could tell that she was getting in the last of
her cargo.

I walked to her stern and read her name in gilt letters: "Pirate, of
Philadelphia." Then I remembered her. She was a Yankee ship of evil
reputation, and although I wanted to get back to my home in New York, I