"'Blow a man down is a blow me down trick.
Blow--Blow--Blow--a man Down.
Blow a man down to the home of old Nick.
Give me some time to blow a man down.'

"The pull being at every other line, there are eight pulls
in the above.

"For a quick pulling chanty we often use this one:

"'Rendso was no sailor--
Rendso, boys, Rendso,
He shipped on board a whaler--
Rendso, boys, Rendso.'

"What happened to Rendso depended on the imagination of the
one who sang the 'coal box'--the line. Here is a heaving
chanty, or slow pull:

"'To South Australia we're bound to go--
Heave away, heave away.
Let the wind blow high or low--
We're bound to South Australia.
We're going home and don't give a damn--
Heave away, heave away.
For the captain, the mate or any other man--
We're bound to South Australia.'

"'Fifteen men on the dead man's chest' never was used as a
chanty. It would require too much bass; but it was used as
a drone, which it is. An abstracted man would use a line,
or may be, the whole verse, or the first line, used as
derision. For illustration:

"When I was last at the Press Club a question pertaining to
the sea came up. One man sought the dictionary. To express
my contempt I repeated the first line. 'We have no use for
the dictionary. To hell with it,' expresses the idea. We
sailors have a language of our own. It is ours, it is up to
us to put you right when the impossible is said. I quote
two such lines:

"'We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight
With twice ten turns of the hawser's bight!

"These two lines are part of a poem written by Young
Allison as a continuance of the Billy Bones song in
Treasure Island.

"A mainsail is made of 0, 1 or 2 canvas, which will stand
alone; 28 sheet-iron would do as well.

"A hawser, with us, is anything in the shape of a rope
which is above six inches circumference. You will note that
the bight is used--two parts, or loop. Instead of using the
largest rope on board a ship, the smallest--skysail
bunt-line--would have been more to the point