smiss this fellow with a contemptuous word, but I
couldn't. Cockney had become a rival I must reckon with. I didn't
like the way he lorded it over the stiffs in my watch, even if the
stiffs themselves did like it. I didn't like the noise he made in the
starboard foc'sle, or the hard case airs he assumed. I was number one
bully in my watch, and intended to remain so. I was, in fact, cock of
the crew (Newman excepted, of course) and I thought that Cockney's
chesty boasting was in a way a defiance of me.

No doubt I was right. As I discovered in time, Cockney had a good
reason behind his blatant tongue. It was necessary that he accustom
some of the crew, even a few stiffs if no more, to follow his
leadership. But he couldn't blow big in his own foc'sle, because Holy
Joe wouldn't allow it; and he didn't dare lay a curse or a finger on
the little parson because he knew if he did the squareheads would jump
him in a body. So he ventured into my bailiwick, hoping, I suppose,
that the open support of Boston and Blackie, his size, which matched my
own, and his newly got reputation as a bad man with a knife, would
bluff me.

It didn't. His dirty and violent talk sickened and wearied me, and
just as soon as I had a reasonable pretext I ordered him out of the
foc'sle. This wasn't as high-handed as it sounds, for Cockney had the
gall one afternoon to leave the deck during his watch out, and break
into my watch's rest with his obscene gabble.

He was disposed to dispute my order, and the stiffs backed him up with
talk. So I turned out and turned to. I slapped a few stiffs, and
threw Cockney through the door. He invited me out on deck, and of
course I accepted. We had a nice set-to before all hands. Even the
tradesmen came forward to see the sport.

Well, Newman's estimate of the man was correct. Cockney was scum,
yellow scum. His fighting methods were as foul as his tongue; he tried
all of his slum tricks, the knee, the eye-gouge, the Liverpool-butt,
and when he found I was up to them, and the stronger man in the
clinches, he wanted to call enough. But I was too incensed by this
time to let him escape easily, and I battered him all about the
foredeck. Finally he turned tail and fled aft. Of course I did not
pursue beyond the deck-house. His fleeing the battle really pleased me
more than knocking him out. I felt sure that such an ignominious
defeat would cook his goose with the stiffs.

It did. Boston and