ling with a "dry" boat was malice aforethought on my part. I had
played John Barleycorn a trick. And it showed that I was listening ever
so slightly to the faint warnings that were beginning to arise in my
consciousness.

Of course, I veiled the situation to myself and excused myself to John
Barleycorn. And I was very scientific about it. I said that I would
drink only while in ports. During the dry sea-stretches my system would
be cleansed of the alcohol that soaked it, so that when I reached a port
I should be in shape to enjoy John Barleycorn more thoroughly. His bite
would be sharper, his kick keener and more delicious.

We were twenty-seven days on the traverse between San Francisco and
Honolulu. After the first day out, the thought of a drink never troubled
me. This I take to show how intrinsically I am not an alcoholic.
Sometimes, during the traverse, looking ahead and anticipating the
delightful lanai luncheons and dinners of Hawaii (I had been there a
couple of times before), I thought, naturally, of the drinks that would
precede those meals. I did not think of those drinks with any yearning,
with any irk at the length of the voyage. I merely thought they would be
nice and jolly, part of the atmosphere of a proper meal.

Thus, once again I proved to my complete satisfaction that I was John
Barleycorn's master. I could drink when I wanted, refrain when I wanted.
Therefore I would continue to drink when I wanted.

Some five months were spent in the various islands of the Hawaiian group.
Being ashore, I drank. I even drank a bit more than I had been
accustomed to drink in California prior to the voyage. The people in
Hawaii seemed to drink a bit more, on the average, than the people in
more temperate latitudes. I do not intend the pun, and can awkwardly
revise the statement to "latitudes more remote from the equator;" Yet
Hawaii is only sub-tropical. The deeper I got into the tropics, the
deeper I found men drank, the deeper I drank myself.

From Hawaii we sailed for the Marquesas. The traverse occupied sixty
days. For sixty days we never raised land, a sail, nor a steamer smoke.
But early in those sixty days the cook, giving an overhauling to the
galley, made a find. Down in the bottom of a deep locker he found a
dozen bottles of angelica and muscatel. These had come down from the
kitchen cellar of the ranch along with the home-preserved fruits and
jellies. Six months in the galley heat ha