“My! My! Tommy,” he says, after the last. “That's a lyric poem,” he says, referring to Kreps and Liebchen.
But he said nothing then about the Good Sister, and I decided to hang around till he did, and one day he brought me a bundle of papers.
“Here's your papers, Tommy,” he says.
“Which?” I says.
“Captain's articles for Tommy Buckingham. Sign 'em,” he says, “and don't be monotonous,” and I was that scared I signed my name so it looked like a rail fence. I contracted to be master of the ship Good Sister, the same to go to Hong-Kong Manila, Singapore, and return.
“You go up to 'Frisco and 'list the crew,” he says. “I'm coming myself by-and-by to look 'em over.”
It was my first ship, and long ago, but the pride of it sticks out of me yet.
I went back to 'Frisco and hired Stevey Todd for cook, and I recollect taking for ship's carpenter the man that called me a “tallow little runt,” which he got misled, there, and he went by the name of “Mitchigan.” I took Kamelillo too, who wanted to go to sea again, but Kreps stayed where he was.
On the day the Good Sister sailed, Sadler came aboard with a valise in his hand, and after him, carrying a valise, was Irish, and after Irish was an old Burmese servant of Fu Shan's that I used to see sweeping the porch, whose name was Maya Dala.
“I'm going along,” says Sadler, and Irish says, “Soime here.” But neither of them said what for, and I thought maybe Sadler was thinking he'd see me safe through the first trip, or maybe it occurred to him to go and take a look at Asia. How should I know?