ough and through, and my pocket-edition of Shakespeare was
reduced to an omelet.

However, availing myself of a fine sunny day that followed, I emptied
myself out in the main-top, and spread all my goods and chattels to
dry. But spite of the bright sun, that day proved a black one. The
scoundrels on deck detected me in the act of discharging my saturated
cargo; they now knew that the white jacket was used for a storehouse.
The consequence was that, my goods being well dried and again stored
away in my pockets, the very next night, when it was my quarter-watch
on deck, and not in the top (where they were all honest men), I noticed
a parcel of fellows skulking about after me, wherever I went. To a man,
they were pickpockets, and bent upon pillaging me. In vain I kept
clapping my pocket like a nervous old gentlemen in a crowd; that same
night I found myself minus several valuable articles. So, in the end, I
masoned up my lockers and pantries; and save the two used for mittens,
the white jacket ever after was pocketless.

CHAPTER X.

FROM POCKETS TO PICKPOCKETS.

As the latter part of the preceding chapter may seem strange to those
landsmen, who have been habituated to indulge in high-raised, romantic
notions of the man-of-war's man's character; it may not be amiss, to
set down here certain facts on this head, which may serve to place the
thing in its true light.

From the wild life they lead, and various other causes (needless to
mention), sailors, as a class, entertain the most liberal notions
concerning morality and the Decalogue; or rather, they take their own
views of such matters, caring little for the theological or ethical
definitions of others concerning what may be criminal, or wrong.

Their ideas are much swayed by circumstances. They will covertly
abstract a thing from one, whom they dislike; and insist upon it, that,
in such a case, stealing is not robbing. Or, where the theft involves
something funny, as in the case of the white jacket, they only steal
for the sake of the joke; but this much is to be observed nevertheless,
i. e., that they never spoil the joke by returning the stolen article.

It is a good joke; for instance, and one often perpetrated on board
ship, to stand talking to a man in a dark night watch, and all the
while be cutting the buttons from his coat. But once off, those buttons
never grow on again. There is no spontaneous vegetation in buttons.

Perhaps it is a thing unavoid