But the things I did on the water only partly counted. What
completed everything, and won for me the title of "Prince of the
Oyster Beds," was that I was a good fellow ashore with my money,
buying drinks like a man. I little dreamed that the time would
come when the Oakland water-front, which had shocked me at first
would be shocked and annoyed by the devilry of the things I did.

But always the life was tied up with drinking. The saloons are
poor men's clubs. Saloons are congregating places. We engaged to
meet one another in saloons. We celebrated our good fortune or
wept our grief in saloons. We got acquainted in saloons.

Can I ever forget the afternoon I met "Old Scratch," Nelson's
father? It was in the Last Chance. Johnny Heinhold introduced us.
That Old Scratch was Nelson's father was noteworthy enough. But
there was more in it than that. He was owner and master of the
scow-schooner Annie Mine, and some day I might ship as a sailor
with him. Still more, he was romance. He was a blue-eyed,
yellow-haired, raw-boned Viking, big-bodied and strong-muscled
despite his age. And he had sailed the seas in ships of all
nations in the old savage sailing days.

I had heard many weird tales about him, and worshipped him from a
distance. It took the saloon to bring us together. Even so, our
acquaintance might have been no more than a hand-grip and a word--
he was a laconic old fellow--had it not been for the drinking.

"Have a drink," I said, with promptitude, after the pause which I
had learned good form in drinking dictates. Of course, while we