he
desire to lead, and eventually placed me in command of ships; it also
gave me my first sense of responsibility, without which there can be no
leadership.

During the supper, and after, I found myself watching and studying my
companions. For I feared that my youth might later cause someone to
question my cockship, and I meant to fight for it in that event. But
my scrutiny satisfied my natural confidence. There was no man in my
watch I could not handle in either a rough-and-tumble or stand-up go, I
thought, with the exception of Newman. He would not interfere with
me--his interest lay aft, in the cabin, not in the foc'sle. In the
port watch were two fighting men, my eyes had told me, the Cockney and
the Nigger. If they disputed my will in foc'sle affairs, I was still
confident I should prove the best man. I felt my tenure of office was
secure, and that new, delicious feeling of power quite effaced, for the
moment, the memory of the day, and reconciled me to the ship.

This scrutiny I gave my companions was the first chance I had to fairly
size them up, and I afterwards discovered that my first impressions of
them, individually and collectively, were quite correct.

We were, as you know, thirty men before the mast, fifteen to a watch.
More than half of the thirty were of that class known to sailors as
"stiffs." This is, they were greenhorns masquerading on the articles
as able seamen. And such stiffs! The Knitting Swede must have combed
the jails, and stews, and boozing kens of all San Francisco to assemble
that unsavory mob.

In my watch, Newman, myself, and four square-heads could be called
seamen. But the squareheads knew not a dozen words of English between
them. The other nine were stiffs, various kinds of stiffs, broken men
all, with the weaknesses of dissolute living stamped upon their
inefficient faces.

Except two men. These two were stiffs right enough, and their faces
were evil, God knows, but they plainly were not to be classed as
weaklings. I noticed them particularly that first watch below because
they sat apart from the wrangling, cursing gang, and whispered to each
other, and stared at Newman, who was lying in his bunk.

They were medium sized men, as pallid of face as Newman, himself, and
their faces gave one the impression of both slyness and force. A grim
looking pair; I should not have cared to run afoul of them on the
Barbary Coast after midnight. I already knew the names they