told
Joe, over a glass of brandy in the sanded-floor parlour of a neat
tavern, that he was a rich man, with a hobby on which he spent a great
deal of money. "It's a hobby of mine," he said, laughing, "to put down
the slave-trade. I don't like it, and so I put it down. Now, a fine
young likely fellow, such as you, is just the man I want for my ship.
How would you like to go sailing the lovely seas catching
slave-dealers, and giving them what-for with the best steel and
gunpowder that money can buy?"

Joe said he could put up with it if the money was all right. And, being
assured that the money was more than all right, he agreed to go down to
Plymouth with a party of the gentleman's friends and try his hand for a
year or two at laying pirates by the heel.

But when our Joe got out to sea and awoke from a terrible bout of
intoxication on the schooner sailed by the gentleman with a hobby, he
discovered that, instead of being on the ocean to catch pirates, he was
there as a pirate himself. The boy had run away from home to make a
fortune catching wicked men; he now found that his bread and butter
depended upon his ability in cracking the heads of perfectly honest men.
Some of the new hands wanted to be put back when the situation was
explained to them, but Joe was among those who felt respect for the
villainous seamen on board (the ship carried 130 men, he says,) who
declared that they had as lief be pirates as catch pirates, and it was
no odds to them what flag they sailed under or for what purpose.

"On board," splutters Joe, striking another match, "there was a turr'ble
fellow--Jack Armstrong--six foot five in socks, strong's a lion, brave's
a tiger. He and me use to fight--every day, pretty near. Bang! crack!
g-r-r-r-r-r! I used to beat him--easy! I was turr'bly strong. Make's
nose bleed--bung's eyes up--split's lips. Ess! And there was a mulatto
aboard. Metsi-metsi-metsi-can, he was."

"He means Mexican," whispers Mr. Wells behind his hand. "That's what Joe
means. A Mexican." And then he gets up from his chair and shouts into
Joe's ear, "You mean a Mex-i-can, Joe."

"Ess; a Metsican," splutters Joe, getting purple in the face under the
impression of a contradiction. "That's what I said--Metsican. Used to
call him Black Peter. I've seen him eat rattlesnake. Swallow him clean
down. Like this, he would--_Gollop!_" Here Mr. Wells goes off into a
quiet chuckle of scepticism, one finger crooked over his pipe-stem, his