a cat in the rain there.

So as MY money was all gone, I was hungry for a ship; and when a long,
keen-looking man with a goat-like beard, and mouth stained with dry
tobacco-juice, hailed me one afternoon at the street-corner, I answered
very promptly, scenting a berth. "Lookin' fer a ship, stranger?" said
he. "Yes; do you want a hand?" said I, anxiously. He made a funny little
sound something like a pony's whinny, then answered, "Wall, I should
surmise that I want between fifty and sixty hands, ef yew kin lay me
onto 'em; but, kem along, every dreep's a drop, an' yew seem likely
enough." With that he turned and led the way until we reached a building
around which were gathered one of the most nondescript crowds I had ever
seen. There certainly did not appear to be a sailor among them. Not
so much by their rig, though that is not a great deal to go by, but
by their actions and speech. One thing they all had in common, tobacco
chewing but as nearly every male I met with in America did that, it was
not much to be noticed. I had hardly done reckoning them up when two or
three bustling men came out and shepherded us all energetically into a
long, low room, where some form of agreement was read out to us. Sailors
are naturally and usually careless about the nature of the "articles"
they sign, their chief anxiety being to get to sea, and under somebody's
charge. But had I been ever so anxious to know what I was going to sign
this time, I could not, for the language might as well have been Chinese
for all I understood of it. However, I signed and passed on, engaged to
go I knew not where, in some ship I did not know even the name of, in
which I was to receive I did not know how much, or how little, for my
labour, nor how long I was going to be away. "What a young fool!" I hear
somebody say. I quite agree, but there were a good many more in that
ship, as in most ships that I have ever sailed in.

From the time we signed the articles, we were never left to ourselves.
Truculent-looking men accompanied us to our several boarding-houses,
paid our debts for us, finally bringing us by boat to a ship lying out
in the bay. As we passed under her stern, I read the name CACHALOT, of
New Bedford; but as soon as we ranged alongside, I realized that I was
booked for the sailor's horror--a cruise in a whaler. Badly as I wanted
to get to sea, I had not bargained for this, and would have run some
risks to get ashore again; but they took no chan