a-caught us except for her having steam."

I continued to stroll up and down beside this massive relic of the
past, and to listen to his hints and muttered reminiscences of old
man-killing and man-driving days. He was too real to be true, and
yet, as I studied his shoulder-stoop and the age-drag of his huge
feet, I was convinced that his years were as he asserted. He spoke
of a Captain Sonurs.

"He was a great captain," he was saying. "An' in the two years I
sailed mate with him there was never a port I didn't jump the ship
goin' in an' stay in hiding until I sneaked aboard when she sailed
again."

"But why?"

"The men, on account of the men swearin' blood an' vengeance and
warrants against me because of my ways of teachin' them to be
sailors. Why, the times I was caught, and the fines the skipper paid
for me--and yet it was my work that made the ship make money.''

He held up his huge paws, and as I stared at the battered, malformed
knuckles I understood the nature of his work.

"But all that's stopped now," he lamented. "A sailor's a gentleman
these days. You can't raise your voice or your hand to them."

At this moment he was addressed from the poop-rail above by the
second mate, a medium-sized, heavily built, clean-shaven, blond man.