when they picked him up. They were off the Bermudas. I suppose he lost
his balance, but I never could see how; he was sure-footed, and as quick
as a cat. They said they saw him try to catch at the stay, but there was
a heavy sea running, and the ship rolled just so's to let him through
between the rigging, and he struck the deck like a stone. I don't
know's that chest has been opened these ten years,--I declare it carries
me back to look at those poor little traps of his. Well, it's the way of
the world; we think we're somebody, and we have our day, but it isn't
long afore we're forgotten."

The captain reached over for the paper, and taking out a clumsy pair of
steel-bowed spectacles, read it through carefully. "I'll warrant he took
good care of this," said he. "He was an I-talian, and no more of an
American citizen than a Chinese; I wonder he hadn't called himself John
Jones, that's the name most of the foreigners used to take when they got
their papers. I remember once I was sick with a fever in Chelsea
Hospital, and one morning they came bringing in the mate of a Portugee
brig on a stretcher, and the surgeon asked what his name was. 'John
Jones,' says he. 'O, say something else,' says the surgeon; 'we've got
five John Joneses here a'ready, and it's getting to be no name at all.'
Sailors are great hands for false names; they have a trick of using them
when they have any money to leave ashore, for fear their shipmates will
go and draw it out. I suppose there are thousands of dollars unclaimed
in New York banks, where men have left it charged to their false names;
then they get lost at sea or something, and never go to get it, and
nobody knows whose it is. They're curious folks, take 'em altogether,
sailors is; specially these foreign fellows that wander about from ship
to ship. They're getting to be a dreadful low set, too, of late years.
It's the last thing I'd want a boy of mine to do,--ship before the mast
with one of these mixed crews. It's a dog's life, anyway, and the risks