E was a young man—not over twenty-four—when I first met him. He came down the dock dressed in nondescript rags which, to the uninitiated, might stamp him as tramp or dock-rat; but to me, taken with his keen glance aloft at our rigging and his sure-footed jump from the stringpiece to the fore-shrouds, they bespoke the deep-water sailor. He dropped to the deck, came straight to the galley door, and looked in.
"Cook," he said, in the deep, raspy voice of strongly fibered men, "I'm hungry. Will you gi' me a bite? I'll saw wood, or peel taters, or—anything at all."
I had but a scant supply of kindling and a sprained wrist; so I set him at work. Later, as he ate his breakfast in the galley, I had a chance to study his face. It was a particularly ill-favored face—not vicious at all, but ill-adjusted by nature—disproportionate. Nothing was in harmony: his ears, though well shaped, stood straight out from his head; his mouth, neither large nor small, was made up of two very thick lips, between which showed two irregular rows of strong, yellow teeth. His eyes were dark and steadfast, deep-sunken in cavities topped by thick eyebrows that met over the nose; and his nose was the nose of a fighter, short, broad, and aquiline. But, as though to atone for her niggardly treatment of his face, Mother Nature had given him the figure and grace of an Apollo. Clearly this was not a man to be satisfied with beggary, and when he had finished his meal and thanked me I asked:
"What's the matter? Have you no boarding-house?"
"Well, yes," he answered, looking me squarely in the eyes; "but I cleared out 'fore I got in debt. I'm through wi' deep water—that is, I'll try starving awhile 'fore I ship again to be thumped and damned like a dog. Ever been deep-water?"
"Yes. One voyage."
"I've made three—three too many. And I went against my will each time. Shanghaied each time, and I skipped at every chance, and tried to get work ashore, but—you know how boarding-masters own us, and how the police are with them, always."
"Yes, I know," I answered; "and I blame no man for trying to escape the life; but can't you get a job on the docks?"
"No; I don't belong to the union, and, as for laboring work, there are ten men waiting for each job, all known to the boss. I hope to slip into something soon, but meanwhile I have to eat."
"What work are you best at?" I asked, idly, for I saw little hope for him. A sailor ashore cannot compete with Italian laborers.
"I have no trade," he answered. "I was a night-watchman in a Brooklyn lumber-yard when they first shanghaied me; and I was studying medicine nights by a dark-lantern and attending lectures in the afternoon. You may not think so, but I'm a high-school graduate. But that's all past now; I can't go home in these clothes, and I'm too old to take up study again, anyhow. No, I'm fixed."
"Why not go coasting until you save some money?" I asked, more interested now.
"Oh, I've tried to," he said, his dark eyes lighting. "They treat men decently on the coast, I hear, and that's a strong point wi' me. I wasn't born to be hammered, and I always hit back, and get the worst of it. But there's a union here, too; and I can't join it without a little money for dues and initiation."
"Ever command men?"
"Been bosun. I'm an able seaman, all right."
"Well, I'll tell you. Clear out now, and come back this afternoon. The skipper wants a second-mate in this schooner, and you might do. I'll sound him at dinner-time. The mate and crew are aboard, and we sail in the morning."
"Thank you, cook. I can't navigate, but second-mates don't have to, as I understand. Yes, I could do the work, I know. And, of course, the skipper won't expect a well-groomed man out of a deep-water fo'c's'le. I'll get clothes the first chance."