ian eyes. But he was a dwarf. So short was he that he
was all sea-boots and sou'wester. And yet he was not entirely Italian.
So certain was I that I asked the mate, who answered morosely:

"Him? Shorty? He's a dago half-breed. The other half's Jap or Malay."

One old man, who I learned was a bosun, was so decrepit that I thought he
had been recently injured. His face was stolid and ox-like, and as he
shuffled and dragged his brogans over the deck he paused every several
steps to place both hands on his abdomen and execute a queer, pressing,
lifting movement. Months were to pass, in which I saw him do this
thousands of times, ere I learned that there was nothing the matter with
him and that his action was purely a habit. His face reminded me of the
Man with the Hoe, save that it was unthinkably and abysmally stupider.
And his name, as I was to learn, of all names was Sundry Buyers. And he
was bosun of the fine American sailing-ship _Elsinore_--rated one of the
finest sailing-ships afloat!

Of this group of aged men and boys that moved the luggage along I saw
only one, called Henry, a youth of sixteen, who approximated in the
slightest what I had conceived all sailors to be like. He had come off a
training ship, the mate told me, and this was his first voyage to sea.
His face was keen-cut, alert, as were his bodily movements, and he wore
sailor-appearing clothes with sailor-seeming grace. In fact, as I was to
learn, he was to be the only sailor-seeming creature fore and aft.

The main crew had not yet come aboard, but was expected at any moment,
the mate vouchsafed with a snarl of ominous expectancy. Those already on
board were the miscellaneous ones who had shipped themselves in New York
without the mediation of boarding-house masters. And what the crew
itself would be like God alone could tell--so said the mate. Shorty, the
Japanese (or Malay) and Italian half-caste, the mate told me, was an able
seaman, though he had come out of steam and this was his first sailing
voyage.

"Ordinary seamen!" Mr. Pike snorted, in reply to a question. "We don't
carry Landsmen!--forget it! Every clodhopper an' cow-walloper these days
is an able seaman. That's the way they rank and are paid. The merchant
service is all shot to hell. There ain't no more sailors. They all died
years ago, before you were born even."

I could smell the raw whiskey on the mate's breath. Yet he did not
stagger nor show any signs of in