“A mate ain’t supposed to know much,” continued Gantline, not liking the smile, “but I didn’t have to stand on my head to take the sun the first time I crossed the line,” and he looked meaningly at the skipper, who smoked in silence.
“So when those fellows talked short and big, I just told them to hurry up to the place they were sure to fetch up in some day and went on uptown. You know what a sailor is, so you know how he spends his last night on the beach.
“I got aboard in the morning and was feeling pretty blue. After sticking my head in a pail of water I came on deck just as we got the word to clear. In a few minutes we were towing out, and I never thought of that little shaver until the next day. Then Mr. Jensen dragged him aft to the ‘old man’ by the scruff of his poor little neck.
“Crojack was feeling blue then, and he didn’t want any boys aboard, so he told the mate to flog him and turn him to with his watch.
“The poor little fellow begged hard not to get the rope’s end, but the mate wouldn’t listen.
“I can’t say I was against lamming him, for I felt he had taken advantage of me.
“Jensen went too far, though, and we came near having a set-to over the child before we were off soundings. Johnnie was cast loose and he fell down on deck. Then old Williams, the bos’n, took him into the fo’castle. After that Jensen took him in hand pretty regular.
“‘In my day,’ said he, ‘boys were taught something, and there weren’t no dudes. And the only way to get knowledge into a boy’s hide is to lam it in with a rope’s end. It stays there then.’ So he would lecture Johnnie on the wicked ways of the world, and after the poor little fellow would listen to the rigmarole and gibble gabble he would take him under the t’gallant fo’castle and lam him beyond all reason, just so he wouldn’t forget a word he told him.”
“That’s what the men said,” broke in Zack Green. “He was a ruffian to the little fellow and a d——d coward, and meaner than the wrath of Davy Jones. It’s all because he wasn’t signed on regular.”
Gantline was silent for a time, and then continued: