Pretty Miss Waters and her mother came on board to see about getting their baggage stowed, and in the morning Mr. Brown came down and reported for duty.
I had so much to attend to during that last day that I hardly had a chance to speak to the young man, but I found that he was as willing to work as Mr. Ropesend had said.
By the time it was light enough to see, in the morning, the shipping-master brought down the men. They were as scurvy a lot of sailors as were ever grouped on a deck. Norwegians, Swedes, Dagos, and Dutchmen of the lowest class, but there wasn’t an English nor American sailor in the lot. I mention this to show what sailors are coming to, for it seems that no Yankee skipper will ship a Yankee crew.
Some of these men were pretty drunk and hardly fit for work, and the second mate carried aft a dozen bottles of hidden liquor which he found in their outfits.
Crojack came on deck and gave the order to cast off. The lines were let go and two tugs pulled us slowly into the stream while a few loungers and longshoremen, who were attracted by the bustle and noise at that early hour, waved their hats and cheered as the Stars and Stripes broke from the peak of the monkey-gaff.
The headline was passed along the port side and stopped at the mizzen channels in order to turn the ship’s head outward, when she cleared the dock. One of the men, a dark-faced Spaniard, who was so drunk that he could hardly understand an order, stood by to cast off the stop when the time came.
“Leggo!” bawled the skipper, from the poop, and the fellow started to cast off while standing outside the line which now had the full power of the tug on it.
In a moment away it went, catching him like a bowstring across the waist. He shot twenty feet into the air and, whirling over and over, landed with a splash in the river.
Crojack supposed that he would be dead or disabled when he rose, so he bawled for the tug to pick him up.
In a few seconds, however, up the fellow came and struck out lustily for the wharf, and, on reaching it, was hauled up by some of the longshoremen. He stopped a few moments to catch his breath, and waved his hand gracefully. Then, putting his thumb to his nose, he spread forth his fingers in a most aggravating manner at the skipper, who had the satisfaction of seeing him bolt through the crowd and make off with what little advance money he had left. This was followed by a yell of derision from his sympathizing friends on the wharf.