cheme had to fail. The second mate
had come from the cabin and had seen us going away. He called the mate,
and that gentleman hailed another ship to send a boat to him. In the
meantime we were doing our best to reach shore. The other boat, with a
full crew, caught up with us within a few yards of the shore. We were
taken back to the ship and handcuffed until the day of sailing.

Finally, the full crew was on board, and made a class of sailors that
the mate had no use for. Americans, Irish, Irish Americans--men of that
class usually stick together; on the other hand, a mixed crew of all
nationalities does the reverse.

The anchor was weighed, our trip for Liverpool was begun, and our
destination would not be reached too soon for any of us. The first day
at sea war was declared. Our mate was the notorious bully, Billy
Shackleford. At one o'clock he came to the forecastle door and in a
gruff voice ordered watch on deck. "And he'd be ---- if there would be
any afternoon watch below on his ship!" He was curtly told to "Go to
----"

"Do you fellows know who Billy Shackleford is?"

"Yes, we know all about you, and any monkey business on your part,
overboard you go!"

Billy was perfectly docile for the rest of that trip. That was the
toughest crew I ever sailed with--nearly all old acquaintances in
Mobile. The amount of money in our possession was over a thousand
dollars, in gold coin. Usually, sailors on a ship leaving port are all
dead broke. An Irishman, for security, had bound a rag around his ankle
containing sixty dollars. One morning his rag was missing. He bewailed
his loss at a terrible rate. Somebody had quietly shaved his original
style of money-belt with a razor while he was taking his sleep on deck
during a night-watch. I was the next victim; twenty dollars in gold was
taken from my sea chest. The chest had been opened with a key. I said
very little about my loss, as I had a strong suspicion that a certain
man had taken it. He had shown me how safe his money was. It was rolled
up in a rag in his trousers' pocket with a string tied around the
outside of the pocket, so that the money could not be reached unless the
string was untied, and that could not be done without removing his
trousers, as he explained to me. His custom was to get into bed
all-a-stand--that is, without undressing. The first stormy night we had
plenty of work to do, reefing the top-sails, and all of us were tired
and sleepy when our watch we