I almost think what decided me was the welcoming, hospitable smile
Miss West gave me as she started directly across the deck for the
cabin, and the knowledge that it must be quite warm in the cabin.

Mr. Pike, the mate, I had already met, when I visited the ship in
Erie Basin. He smiled a stiff, crack-faced smile that I knew must be
painful, but did not offer to shake hands, turning immediately to
call orders to half-a-dozen frozen-looking youths and aged men who
shambled up from somewhere in the waist of the ship. Mr. Pike had
been drinking. That was patent. His face was puffed and
discoloured, and his large gray eyes were bitter and bloodshot.

I lingered, with a sinking heart watching my belongings come aboard
and chiding my weakness of will which prevented me from uttering the
few words that would put a stop to it. As for the half-dozen men who
were now carrying the luggage aft into the cabin, they were unlike
any concept I had ever entertained of sailors. Certainly, on the
liners, I had observed nothing that resembled them.

One, a most vivid-faced youth of eighteen, smiled at me from a pair
of remarkable Italian eyes. But he was a dwarf. So short was he
that he was all sea-boots and sou'wester. And yet he was not
entirely Italian. So certain was I that I asked the mate, who
answered morosely:

"Him? Shorty? He's a dago half-breed. The other half's Jap or
Malay."

One old man, who I learned was a bosun, was so decrepit that I