ammer and the
tooth was out, while Larry was jumping around holding his jaw. It is a
wonder it wasn't fractured. But Mr. Pike avers he has removed hundreds
of teeth by this method and never known a fractured jaw. Also, he avers
he once sailed with a skipper who shaved every Sunday morning and never
touched a razor, nor any cutting-edge, to his face. What he used,
according to Mr. Pike, was a lighted candle and a damp towel. Another
candidate for Nietzsche's immortals who are hard!

As for Mr. Pike himself, he is the highest-spirited, best-conditioned man
on board. The driving to which he subjected the _Elsinore_ was meat and
drink. He still rubs his hands and chuckles over the memory of it.

"Huh!" he said to me, in reference to the crew; "I gave 'em a taste of
real old-fashioned sailing. They'll never forget this hooker--at least
them that don't take a sack of coal overside before we reach port."

"You mean you think we'll have more sea-burials?" I inquired.

He turned squarely upon me, and squarely looked me in the eyes for the
matter of five long seconds.

"Huh!" he replied, as he turned on his heel. "Hell ain't begun to pop on
this hooker."

He still stands his mate's watch, alternating with Mr. Mellaire, for he
is firm in his conviction that there is no man for'ard fit to stand a
second mate's watch. Also, he has kept his old quarters. Perhaps it is
out of delicacy for Margaret; for I have learned that it is the
invariable custom for the mate to occupy the captain's quarters when the
latter dies. So Mr. Mellaire still eats by himself in the big
after-room, as he has done since the loss of the carpenter, and bunks as
before in the 'midship-house with Nancy.

CHAPTER XLII

Mr. Mellaire was right. The men would not accept the driving when the
_Elsinore_ won to easier latitudes. Mr. Pike was right. Hell had not
begun to pop. But it has popped now, and men are overboard without even
the kindliness of a sack of coal at their feet. And yet the men, though
ripe for it, did not precipitate the trouble. It was Mr. Mellaire. Or,
rather, it was Ditman Olansen, the crank-eyed Norwegian. Perhaps it was
Possum. At any rate, it was an accident, in which the several-named,
including Possum, played their respective parts.

To begin at the beginning. Two weeks have elapsed since we crossed 50,
and we are now in 37--the same latitude as San Francisco, or, to be
correct, we are as far south of th