sailor is always excessive--made them mad, but only mildly mad.
Violent madness was objectionable because it spoiled the fun of
others and often culminated in tragedy. From their standpoint,
mild madness was all right. But from the standpoint of the whole
human race, is not all madness objectionable? And is there a
greater maker of madness of all sorts than John Barleycorn?

But to return. Ashore, snugly ensconced in a Japanese house of
entertainment, Axel and I compared bruises, and over a comfortable
drink talked of the afternoon's happenings. We liked the
quietness of that drink and took another. A shipmate dropped in,
several shipmates dropped in, and we had more quiet drinks.
Finally, just as we had engaged a Japanese orchestra, and as the
first strains of the samisens and taikos were rising, through the
paper-walls came a wild howl from the street. We recognised it.
Still howling, disdaining doorways, with blood-shot eyes and
wildly waving muscular arms, Victor burst upon us through the
fragile walls. The old amuck rage was on him, and he wanted
blood, anybody's blood. The orchestra fled; so did we. We went
through doorways, and we went through paper-walls--anything to get
away.

And after the place was half wrecked, and we had agreed to pay the
damage, leaving Victor partly subdued and showing symptoms of
lapsing into a comatose state, Axel and I wandered away in quest
of a quieter drinking-place. The main street was a madness.
Hundreds of sailors rollicked up and down. Because the chief of
police with his small force was helpless, the governor of the
colony had issued orders to the captains to have all their men on
board by sunset.