e careful and
provident boss had had them chained to the floor. So I hit him, and hit
him rather hard, for what he had said out of pure devilry. He was
sitting on the table and I knocked him off. His particular mate was the
very thick-headed Englishman. He did his best for the Nova Scotian by
holding me very tight while the blue-nose hammered me. This was awkward,
to say nothing about the unfairness of it. I got away but presently
found myself across a bench with my back in danger of being broken. More
by good luck than management I broke loose and got the blue-nose across
the bench, I am thankful to say I nearly broke his back. Then we waltzed
round the room in the wildest way, till the wife of the boss and the
servant girl flew in and broke up the party with the most amazing
energy. I was the youngest and the most civilised, and the women
naturally said it was the Nova Scotian's fault. They said so in the most
voluble manner, and the Nova Scotian did not like it. He said they took
my part because I was not so ugly as he was, and said it wasn't fair,
especially as I had spoilt what little beauty he had. He further
asserted that he would knock the stuffing out of me, and we were on
hostile terms for twenty-four hours. Two days later he got a job as
bo'sun in a barque and his mate shipped with him, and peace was assured
for a time.

The food they gave us was rough but fairly good and plentiful. Wherever
the meat came from it could be masticated with some effort. In Barclay's
boarding-house, in Williamstown, we had to take a spell in the middle of
a mouthful. I have seen steak there that would have pauled a
chaff-cutter. In the dining-room at Salthouse Lane there lived the
wildest, most eccentric clock I ever saw in all my travels. It had a
most remarkable way of striking quite peculiar to itself. We used to
dine at one o'clock. At noon the clock usually struck one. In very
extravagant days it struck two. But no one could guess what it would
strike when it was really one o'clock. I once counted seventy-two
strokes, and on a public holiday it went up to a hundred and twenty. It
was our only amusement.

We were allowed to come in at almost any time. When the Nova Scotian and
his mate had departed the Cockney and the herring-back and I used to
run together and go waltzing round the back part of Hull pretty well all
night. Once we sat on the steps of a bank for nearly four hours, between
twelve and four. With us were two yo