A formidable document lay on the desk, awaiting our signatures, and, almost before I knew it, I found myself entered on the Arethusa's articles, with the hundred an fiftieth, as blacksmith and green hand. Our outfits of "clothing and other necessaries" were put into our chests for us at the store; and most of us now donned some articles to replace such of our clothing as was in a dilapidated condition, while the best garments of which we happened to stand possessed were still retained in wear. The result was an incongruity in the various parts of our attire, which occasioned much merriment. Thus, one wore a check shirt under the shade of a glossy beaver; another a "claw-hammer" or dress-coat over bright red flannels; while tarpaulin hats surmounted with white shirts and dickeys, and patent leather peeped out under voluminous duck trowsers. The whalemen criticised us as "half-Jack half-gentlemen," as we took a stroll down the busy wharves, to look at the shipping generally, and especially to inspect the noble vessel which was to be our future home.
We wound our tortuous way down through a labyrinth of old anchors and trypots, spars, timber and oil-casks, now diving under a capstan bar, and again making a detour to double a long pair of trucks or skids, backed up at a tier of oil to parbuckle its load on. We all fell in love with the Arethusa at sight, which might, in our case, be termed an illustration of "love after marriage," seeing that our names were already on her papers. She was indeed a fine specimen of naval architecture, and her model was much admired at that time, for this was before the day of extreme clippers. She was painted with the bright waist, a style more in vogue then than now, consisting of a broad yellow streak, relieved by narrow white moulding or ribbons. She appeared to justify all that the boarding-master had said of her; and, in the simplicity of our hearts, we had no doubt that his enumeration of her mainto'gall'nt-s'ls and backstays was perfectly correct.
It being a holiday afternoon, there was a crowd of boys on the wharf, who appeared to me to be quite a distinctive class of juveniles, accustomed to consider themselves as predestined mariners. Their fathers and grandfathers before them had spent the whole period of their lives "round Cape Horn;" their elder brothers were even now serving their apprenticeship in the same manner, and, as regarded themselves, it was only a question of time how soon they should start. They climbed ratlines like monkeys--little fellows of ten or twelve years--and laid out on the yardarms with the most perfect nonchalance, shouting and laughing at our awkward attempts to perform the same feats. They ridiculed us as "greenies," and there was no help for it but to take it all in good part, and bear with their boyish impudence as philosophically as might be. Hostile advances were useless, for we might as well have kicked at the empty air.