“I was sitting one day in a grog shop near the harbour, where I was allowed to run up a score though my last shilling was spent, and I didn’t exactly know how I was to pay for it, when somehow or other I lost my senses. I might have been asleep, or I might have been drunk. When I came to myself, I was in the fore peak of a small vessel, and when I went on deck I found that we were out of sight of land. It was not the first time that such a thing had happened to me, and so I was not going to make a fuss about it. I looked round on my new shipmates, who were about as rough a lot as I ever set eyes on; may be I was not very different from them, but we hadn’t a looking-glass on board that craft, so, do you see, I was not able to judge. I asked the name of the craft, where we were bound for, and the object of the voyage.
“My shipmates laughed.
”‘Where were you raised: you don’t look as green as you would wish to make us fancy,’ said one without answering my question.
”‘I was raised in a country where they grow bull-dogs, which are more apt to bite than to bark,’ I growled out. ‘When I ask a question I expect a civil answer. I was at sea, and crossed the line a dozen times while most of you were still sucking pap, and so you will understand that though I don’t exactly know how I came to be aboard this craft, you had better not try to pass off your tricks on me.’
“I thought this would have made them bowse on the slack of their jaw-tackles, but they were banded together, and fancied they could say what they liked to me. One young fellow only, Bill Harding was his name, I found stood aloof from them, and cried out that it was a shame to attack an old fellow like me, though I might have got hocussed and shipped on board without knowing it. On that one of them, Jos Noakes they called him, goes up to Bill, and begins blackguarding him. He stood as cool as a cucumber, with a smile on his good-looking face. He was the only one among the lot who was not as ugly as sin.
“Says Bill to Jos, ‘You had better not. I have floored many a man who could beat you with his little finger, and so, Jos, to my mind, you will get the worst of it.’
“I pulled out my pipe and lighted it, for, d’ye see, there’s nothing like a bit of baccy for keeping a man cool, and cool I wanted to be just then. This showed them more than anything else what I was made of.
“There Bill stood waiting to see what Jos would do, while the rest gathered round edging Jos on. Jos doubled his fists, getting nearer and nearer to Bill, and at last made a hit at him. In a moment Bill’s arms were unfolded, and he struck out and caught Jos’s ugly face a blow which sent him reeling backwards, till he lay kicking like a turtle on his back.
”‘Sarve you right, Jos,’ cried out several voices, and now most of the crew seemed to side with Bill.
“Jos had had enough of it, and sneaked below to bathe his jaws in water.