ts frozen sheets, he announced his intention of
"taking a turn among them Kanakas." I thought I should have lost him
soon; but according to the unwritten usage of mariners, he had first to
dissipate his wages. "Guess I'll have to paint this town red," was his
hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever embarked upon a milder
course of dissipation, most of his days being passed in the little
parlour behind Black Tom's public house, with a select corps of old
particular acquaintances, all from the South Seas, and all patrons of a
long yarn, a short pipe, and glasses round.

Black Tom's, to the front, presented the appearance of a fourth-rate
saloon, devoted to Kanaka seamen, dirt, negrohead tobacco, bad cigars,
worse gin, and guitars and banjos in a state of decline. The proprietor,
a powerful coloured man, was at once a publican, a ward politician,
leader of some brigade of "lambs" or "smashers," at the wind of whose
clubs the party bosses and the mayor were supposed to tremble, and (what
hurt nothing) an active and reliable crimp. His front quarters,
then, were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe. I have seen worse
frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom was often
drunk himself; and there is no doubt the Lambs must have been a useful
body, or the place would have been closed. I remember one day, not long
before an election, seeing a blind man, very well dressed, led up to the
counter and remain a long while in consultation with the negro. The pair
looked so ill-assorted, and the awe with which the drinkers fell back
and left them in the midst of an impromptu privacy was so unusual in
such a place, that I turned to my next neighbour with a question. He
told me the blind man was a distinguished party boss, called by some
the King of San Francisco, but perhaps better known by his picturesque
Chinese nickname of the Blind White Devil. "The Lambs must be wanted
pretty bad, I guess," my informant added. I have here a sketch of the
Blind White Devil leaning on the counter; on the next page, and taken
the same hour, a jotting of Black Tom threatening a whole crowd of
customers with a long Smith and Wesson: to such heights and depths we
rose and fell in the front parts of the saloon.

Meanwhile, away in the back quarters, sat the small informal South Sea
club, talking of another world and surely of a different century. Old
schooner captains they were, old South Sea traders, cooks, and mates:
fine crea