y art the silly Fish dost kill,_
_Perchance the Devils Hook sticks in thy Gill._
Flavel's New Compass for Sea-men, 1674.

I must have made a good many references here and there to the steward,
old Mouldytop, and it occurs to me that he deserves a paragraph to
himself. Of this ship, whom her most faithful lovers called a dirty
ship, with her short funnel pouring a greasy smoke over her graceless
body when even coal-dust rested--of this grimy tramp, playing a sufficient
part in the world's daily life, rolling and lurching up and down oceans
with fuel or foodstuff, thousands of tons at a time, it may be safely
said that the steward was the feature. In the _Optimist_ it was evident
that he as an inspiration excluded almost every other. In the round of
day and night, should he himself be unseen for a time, his voice would
generally claim your notice; if conversation took on dark and prophetic
tones, it was, for a ducat, some restatement of the ancient's wickedness,
and a realization of the strength of his position against all the world.
For behind Mouldytop was the power of Hosea.

The steward was built somehow after the shape of a buoy. It was Ireland,
and not Scotland, that his ancestors had left; but there was a doubt
about his own dialect. It was, and it was not, plain English. His bulbous,
melancholy face was topped with grey hairs, but those he hid under his
faded brown skull-cap. Forty-nine years, one understood, had Mouldytop
been at sea; and before that, the veil of mystery was thin enough to
show him in his first stage, a batman in the Army. This fact led him
to deprecate modern warfare, "It's all science, Mister," and those who
fought it; he claimed to have been blooded _fighting_ in some corner
of the desert with spear-brandishing multitudes. At the same time, he
reserved his reminiscences; for the refined insult, "You old soldier,"
needed no encouragement.

He seldom grew cheerful. I suppose that he was happiest when some one
(no doubt with serpent tongue) asked how his cold was. Then, his roar
softened into a resigned murmur, as he recorded that it was as bad as
ever; that six bottles of his own medicine taken regularly had not cured
him. This was a pleasure that he shared with the author of one of the most
melodious English songs, and it seems to be prophetic of his appearance--

Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fastened to the