The captains of the Lurline and the O. M. Kellogg were at the club. The Lurline was twenty-seven years old, and the Kellogg, too, high up in her teens, if not twenties. Their skippers were Americans, the Kellogg’s master as dark as a negro, burned by thirty years of tropical sun.
“I used to live in Hawaii in the eighties,” he said. “I used to pass the pipe there in those days. There’d be only one pipe among a dozen kanakas, and each had a draw or so in turn. They have that custom in the Marquesas, too, and so had the American Indians.”
I walked with the Kellogg’s skipper to his vessel, moored close to the quay in front of the club. He gave an order to the mate, who told him to go to sheol. The mate had been ashore.
“Come aboard,” cried the mate, “and I will knock your block off.”
The whole waterfront heard the challenge. Stores were deserted to witness the imminent fight.
The dark-faced captain ascended the gang-plank, and walked to the forecastle head, where the mate was directing the making taut a line.
“Now,” said the skipper, a foot from the mate, “knock!”
The mate hesitated. That would be a crime; he would go to jail and the captain would be delighted.
The master taunted him:
“Knock my block off! Touch my block, and I’ll whip you so your mother wouldn’t know you, you dirty, drunken, son of a sea-cook!”