toxication. Not until afterward was I to
know that his willingness to talk was most unwonted and was where the
liquor gave him away.

"It'd a-ben a grace had I died years ago," he said, "rather than to a-
lived to see sailors an' ships pass away from the sea."

"But I understand the _Elsinore_ is considered one of the finest," I
urged.

"So she is . . . to-day. But what is she?--a damned cargo-carrier. She
ain't built for sailin', an' if she was there ain't no sailors left to
sail her. Lord! Lord! The old clippers! When I think of 'em!--_The
Gamecock_, _Shootin' Star_, _Flyin' Fish_, _Witch o' the Wave_,
_Staghound_, _Harvey Birch_, _Canvas-back_, _Fleetwing_, _Sea Serpent_,
_Northern Light_! An' when I think of the fleets of the tea-clippers
that used to load at Hong Kong an' race the Eastern Passages. A fine
sight! A fine sight!"

I was interested. Here was a man, a live man. I was in no hurry to go
into the cabin, where I knew Wada was unpacking my things, so I paced up
and down the deck with the huge Mr. Pike. Huge he was in all conscience,
broad-shouldered, heavy-boned, and, despite the profound stoop of his
shoulders, fully six feet in height.

"You are a splendid figure of a man," I complimented.

"I was, I was," he muttered sadly, and I caught the whiff of whiskey
strong on the air.

I stole a look at his gnarled hands. Any finger would have made three of
mine. His wrist would have made three of my wrist.

"How much do you weigh?" I asked.

"Two hundred an' ten. But in my day, at my best, I tipped the scales
close to two-forty."

"And the _Elsinore_ can't sail," I said, returning to the subject which
had roused him.

"I'll take you even, anything from a pound of tobacco to a month's wages,
she won't make it around in a hundred an' fifty days," he answered. "Yet
I've come round in the old _Flyin' Cloud_ in eighty-nine days--eighty-nine
days, sir, from Sandy Hook to 'Frisco. Sixty men for'ard that _was_ men,
an' eight boys, an' drive! drive! drive! Three hundred an' seventy-four
miles for a day's run under t'gallantsails, an' in the squalls eighteen
knots o' line not enough to time her. Eighty-nine days--never beat, an'
tied once by the old _Andrew Jackson_ nine years afterwards. Them was
the days!"

"When did the _Andrew Jackson_ tie her?" I asked, because of the growing
suspicion that he was "having" me.

"In 1860," was his prompt reply.

"And you sailed in the _Flying Clo