d, from their stinginess, procured the name of
_Ravelings_--no sooner were these men fairly adrift in harbour, and
under the influence of frequent quaffings, than their
three-years'-earned wages flew right and left; they summoned whole
boarding-houses of sailors to the bar, and treated them over and over
again. Fine fellows! generous-hearted tars! Seeing this sight, I
thought to myself, Well, these generous-hearted tars on shore were the
greatest curmudgeons afloat! it's the bottle that's generous, not they!
Yet the popular conceit concerning a sailor is derived from his
behaviour ashore; whereas, ashore he is no longer a sailor, but a
landsman for the time. A man-of-war's-man is only a man-of-war's-man at
sea; and the sea is the place to learn what he is. But we have seen
that a man-of-war is but this old-fashioned world of ours afloat, full
of all manner of characters--full of strange contradictions; and though
boasting some fine fellows here and there, yet, upon the whole, charged
to the combings of her hatchways with the spirit of Belial and all
unrighteousness.

CHAPTER XCII.

THE LAST OF THE JACKET.

Already has White-Jacket chronicled the mishaps and inconveniences,
troubles and tribulations of all sorts brought upon him by that
unfortunate but indispensable garment of his. But now it befalls him to
record how this jacket, for the second and last time, came near proving
his shroud.

Of a pleasant midnight, our good frigate, now somewhere off the Capes
of Virginia, was running on bravely, when the breeze, gradually dying,
left us slowly gliding toward our still invisible port.

Headed by Jack Chase, the quarter-watch were reclining in the top,
talking about the shore delights into which they intended to plunge,
while our captain often broke in with allusions to similar
conversations when he was on board the English line-of-battle ship, the
Asia, drawing nigh to Portsmouth, in England, after the battle of
Navarino.

Suddenly an order was given to set the main-top-gallant-stun'-sail, and
the halyards not being rove, Jack Chase assigned to me that duty. Now
this reeving of the halyards of a main-top-gallant-stun'-sail is a
business that eminently demands sharpsightedness, skill, and celerity.

Consider that the end of a line, some two hundred feet long, is to be
carried aloft, in your teeth, if you please, and dragged far out on the
giddiest of yards, and after being wormed and twisted about through