e schooner sailors doubted my exploit. Further,
I--or John Barleycorn, for it was the same thing--told Scotty that he
might be a deep-sea sailor and know the last rope on the great deep-sea
ships, but that when it came to small-boat sailing I could beat him hands
down and sail circles around him.

The best of it was that my assertion and brag were true. With reticence
and modesty present, I could never have dared tell Scotty my small-boat
estimate of him. But it is ever the way of John Barleycorn to loosen the
tongue and babble the secret thought.

Scotty, or John Barleycorn, or the pair, was very naturally offended by
my remarks. Nor was I loath. I could whip any runaway sailor seventeen
years old. Scotty and I flared and raged like young cockerels, until the
harpooner poured another round of drinks to enable us to forgive and make
up. Which we did, arms around each other's necks, protesting vows of
eternal friendship--just like Black Matt and Tom Morrisey, I remembered,
in the ranch kitchen in San Mateo. And, remembering, I knew that I was
at last a man--despite my meagre fourteen years--a man as big and manly
as those two strapping giants who had quarrelled and made up on that
memorable Sunday morning of long ago.

By this time the singing stage was reached, and I joined Scotty and the
harpooner in snatches of sea songs and chanties. It was here, in the
cabin of the Idler, that I first heard "Blow the Man Down," "Flying
Cloud," and "Whisky, Johnny, Whisky." Oh, it was brave. I was beginning
to grasp the meaning of life. Here was no commonplace, no Oakland
Estuary, no weary round of throwing newspapers at front doors, delivering
ice, and setting up ninepins. All the world was mine, all its paths were
under my feet, and John Barleycorn, tricking my fancy, enabled me to
anticipate the life of adventure for which I yearned.

We were not ordinary. We were three tipsy young gods, incredibly wise,
gloriously genial, and without limit to our powers. Ah!--and I say it
now, after the years--could John Barleycorn keep one at such a height, I
should never draw a sober breath again. But this is not a world of free
freights. One pays according to an iron schedule--for every strength the
balanced weakness; for every high a corresponding low; for every
fictitious god-like moment an equivalent time in reptilian slime. For
every feat of telescoping long days and weeks of life into mad
magnificent instants, one must