full-fledged man! Of course, I
must straightway prove my manhood; so I was bound for the Knitting
Swede's.

Everybody knew the Knitting Swede in those days; every man Jack who
ever joined a ship. They told of him in New York, and London, and
Callao, and Singapore, and in every foc'sle afloat. The king of
crimps! He sat in his barroom, in East street, placidly knitting socks
with four steel needles, and as placidly ignoring every law of God and
man. He ruled the 'Frisco waterfront, did the Knitting Swede, and made
his power felt to the very ends of the seas.

Stories about him were without number. It was the Knitting Swede who
shanghaied the corpse on board the _Tam o' Shanter_. It was the
Knitting Swede who drugged the skipper of the _Sequoia_, and shipped
him in his own foc'sle. It was the Knitting Swede who sent the crowd
of cowboys to sea in the _Enterprise_. It was the Knitting Swede who
was the infamous hero of quite half the dog-watch yarns. It was the
Knitting Swede who was--oh, the very devil!

And it was on this very account I was bound for the Swede's house.
Very simple, and sailorlike, my motive. In my mind's eye I saw a scene
which would be enacted on board my next ship. Some fellow would ask
me--as some fellow always does--"And what house did you put up in, in
'Frisco, Jack?" And I would take the pipe out of my mouth, and answer
in a carefully careless voice, "Oh, I stopped with the Knitting Swede."
And then the whole foc'sle would look at me as one man, and there would
be respect in their eyes. For only very hard cases ever stopped at the
Knitting Swede's.

Well, I found the Swede's place easily enough. And he was there in
person to welcome me. I discovered his appearance to be just what the
stories described--a tall, great paunched man, who bulked gigantic as
he perched on a high stool at the end of the bar, a half-knitted gray
sock in his hands, and an air about him of cow-like contentment. He
possessed a mop of straw-colored hair, and a pair of little, mild, blue
eyes that regarded one with all the innocence of a babe's stare.

He suspended his knitting for a moment, gave me a fat, flabby hand, and
a grin which disclosed a mouthful of yellow teeth.

"_Ja_, you koom for a good time, and, by and by, a good ship," says he.
"Yoost trust the Swede--he treat you right."

So he sent my bag upstairs to a room, accepted my money for
safekeeping, and I set up the drinks for the house.