e impenetrable unknown, and makes into the crowd after
the bodiless voice. But the attempt to find an owner for that voice is
quite as idle as the effort to discover the contents of the monkey
jacket.

And here sorrowful mention must be made of something which, during this
state of affairs, most sorely afflicted me. Most monkey jackets are of
a dark hue; mine, as I have fifty times repeated, and say again, was
white. And thus, in those long, dark nights, when it was my
quarter-watch on deck, and not in the top, and others went skulking and
"sogering" about the decks, secure from detection--their identity
undiscoverable--my own hapless jacket for ever proclaimed the name of
its wearer. It gave me many a hard job, which otherwise I should have
escaped. When an officer wanted a man for any particular duty--running
aloft, say, to communicate some slight order to the captains of the
tops--how easy, in that mob of incognitoes, to individualise "_that
white jacket_," and dispatch him on the errand. Then, it would never do
for me to hang back when the ropes were being pulled.

Indeed, upon all these occasions, such alacrity and cheerfulness was I
obliged to display, that I was frequently held up as an illustrious
example of activity, which the rest were called upon to emulate.
"Pull--pull! you lazy lubbers! Look at White-Jacket, there; pull like
him!"

Oh! how I execrated my luckless garment; how often I scoured the deck
with it to give it a tawny hue; how often I supplicated the inexorable
Brush, captain of the paint-room, for just one brushful of his
invaluable pigment. Frequently, I meditated giving it a toss overboard;
but I had not the resolution. Jacketless at sea! Jacketless so near
Cape Horn! The thought was unendurable. And, at least, my garment was a
jacket in name, if not in utility.

At length I essayed a "swap." "Here, Bob," said I, assuming all
possible suavity, and accosting a mess-mate with a sort of diplomatic
assumption of superiority, "suppose I was ready to part with this
'grego' of mine, and take yours in exchange--what would you give me to
boot?"

"Give you to _boot?_" he exclaimed, with horror; "I wouldn't take your
infernal jacket for a gift!"

How I hailed every snow-squall; for then--blessings on them!--many of
the men became _white-jackets_ along with myself; and, powdered with
the flakes, we all looked like millers.

We had six lieutenants, all of whom, with the exception of the First
Lieut