of
English and American ships. It is possible that, like so many of his
race in similar positions, he had already lost his native tongue. In
mind, at least, he was quite denationalised; thought only in English--to
call it so; and though by nature one of the mildest, kindest, and most
feebly playful of mankind, he had been so long accustomed to the cruelty
of sea discipline that his stories (told perhaps with a giggle) would
sometimes turn me chill. In appearance he was tall, light of weight,
bold and high-bred of feature, dusky-haired, and with a face of a clean
even brown--the ornament of outdoor men. Seated in a chair, you might
have passed him off for a baronet or a military officer; but let him
rise, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that came rolling toward you, crab-like;
let him but open his lips, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that piped and
drawled his ungrammatical gibberish. He had sailed (among other places)
much among the islands; and after a Cape Horn passage with its
snow-squalls and its frozen sheets, he announced his intention of
"taking a turn among them Kanakas." I thought I should have lost him
soon; but, according to the unwritten usage of mariners, he had first to
dissipate his wages. "Guess I'll have to paint this town red," was his
hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever embarked upon a milder
course of dissipation, most of his days being passed in the little
parlour behind Black Tom's public-house, with a select corps of old
particular acquaintances, all from the South Seas, and all patrons of a
long yarn, a short pipe, and glasses round.

Black Tom's, to the front, presented the appearance of a fourth-rate
saloon, devoted to Kanaka seamen, dirt, negrohead tobacco, bad cigars,
worse gin, and guitars and banjos in a state of decline. The proprietor,
a powerful coloured man, was at once a publican, a ward politician,
leader of some brigade of "lambs" or "smashers," at the wind of whose
clubs the party bosses and the mayor were supposed to tremble, and (what
hurt nothing) an active and reliable crimp. His front quarters, then,
were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe. I have seen
worse-frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom was
often drunk himself: and there is no doubt the Lambs must have been a
useful body, or the place would have been closed. I remember one day,
not long before an election, seeing a blind man, very well dressed, led
up to the counter and remain a long while in c