Lark Islander of eleven, saw to
it that he was continually supplied.

Pankburn did not object to the hard work. He devoured work, never
shirking and always beating the native sailors in jumping to obey a
command. But his sufferings during the period of driving the alcohol out
of his system were truly heroic. Even when the last shred of the poison
was exuded, the desire, as an obsession, remained in his head. So it
was, when, on his honour, he went ashore at Apia, that he attempted to
put the public houses out of business by drinking up their stocks in
trade. And so it was, at two in the morning, that David Grief found him
in front of the Tivoli, out of which he had been disorderly thrown by
Charley Roberts. Aloysius, as of old, was chanting his sorrows to the
stars. Also, and more concretely, he was punctuating the rhythm with
cobbles of coral stone, which he flung with amazing accuracy through
Charley Roberts's windows.

David Grief took him away, but not till next morning did he take him
in hand. It was on the deck of the _Kittiwake_, and there was nothing
kindergarten about it. Grief struck him, with bare knuckles, punched him
and punished him--gave him the worst thrashing he had ever received.

"For the good of your soul, Pankburn," was the way he emphasized his
blows. "For the good of your mother. For the progeny that will come
after. For the good of the world, and the universe, and the whole race
of man yet to be. And now, to hammer the lesson home, we'll do it all
over again. That, for the good of your soul; and that, for your mother's
sake; and that, for the little children, undreamed of and unborn, whose
mother you'll love for their sakes, and for love's sake, in the lease
of manhood that will be yours when I am done with you. Come on and take
your medicine. I'm not done with you yet. I've only begun. There are
many other reasons which I shall now proceed to expound." The brown
sailors and the black stewards and cook looked on and grinned. Far from
them was the questioning of any of the mysterious and incomprehensible
ways of white men. As for Carlsen, the mate, he was grimly in accord
with the treatment his employer was administering; while Albright, the
supercargo, merely played with his mustache and smiled. They were men
of the sea. They lived life in the rough. And alcohol, in themselves as
well as in other men, was a problem they had learned to handle in ways
not taught in doctors' schools.

"Boy! A b