Accordingly he had advised the mate to address him only in the line of
duty, on which occasions he desired to be referred to as Mr. Peasley,
and, the mate demurring from this program, the customary maritime
fracas had ensued. Consequently, somebody had to quit on arrival at
San Francisco; and since, Matt was the last to come, he was the first
to go. On the strength of his two previous discharges he shipped as
second mate on the bark Andrew Welch, for a voyage to Honolulu and
back; then, his services as second mate being all in, he went before
the inspectors for his first mate's ticket and was awarded an
unlimited license.

Matt was now past twenty; and, though not fully filled out, he was big
enough to be a chief kicker anywhere. Six feet three in his bare
feet; two hundred pounds in the buff; lean, lithe and supple as a
panther, the mere sight of his big lumpy shoulders would have been
sufficient to have quelled an incipient mutiny. Nevertheless,
graduate that he was of a hard, hard school, his face was that of an
innocent, trusting, good-natured, immature boy, proclaiming him
exactly what he knew his men called him--a big, over-grown kid. He
hated himself for his glorious youth.

"You're pretty much of a child to have an unlimited ticket, my son,"
the supervising inspector informed him. "However, you've had the
experience and your record is far above the average, so we're going to
issue the license; but if you'll take a bit of advice from an old
sailor you'll be content to go as second mate for a year or two more,
until your jowls blacken up a bit and you get a trifle thicker in the
middle."