nty
of room and comfort aboard one of these big schooners. That cabin and
the staterooms, they're fine!"

"Oh, they have to give a master a good home these days. That's a Winton
carpet in the saloon," declared the mate, with pride. "And we've got a
one-eyed cook who can certainly sling grub together. Yes, for a cheap
vacation I dun'no' but a schooner is all right!"

The two were getting on most amicably when Mayo went forward. He was
dog-tired and turned in on tie bare boards of his fo'cas'le berth.

No bedding is furnished men before the mast on the coal-carriers.

If a man wants anything between himself and the boards he must bring it
with him, and few do so. At the end of each trip a crew is discharged
and new men are hired, in order to save paying wages while a vessel is
in port loading or discharging. Therefore, a coastwise schooner harbors
only transients, for whom the fo'cas'le is merely a shelter between
watches.

But Mayo was a sailor, and the bare boards served him better than
bedding in which some dusky and dirty son of Ham had nestled. He laid
himself down and slept soundly.

The second mate turned out the watch below at four bells--six in the
morning. The schooner was in the stream and all hands were needed to
work hose and brooms and clear off the coal-dust. Mayo toiled in the
wallow of black water till his muscles ached.

There was one happy respite--they knocked off long enough to eat
breakfast. It was sent out to them from the cook-house in one huge,
metal pan without dishes or knives or forks.

A white cook wash dishes for negroes?

Mayo knew the custom which prevailed on board the schooners between the
coal ports and the New England cities, and he fished for food with his
fingers and cut meat with his jack-knife with proper meekness.

When he was back at his scrubbing again the cook passed aft, bearing
the zinc-lined hamper which contained the breakfast for the cabin table.
That this cook had the complete vocabulary of others of his ilk was
revealed when the man with the hose narrowly missed drenching the
hamper.

"That's right, cook!" roared Captain Downs, climbing ponderously on
board from his yawl. "Talk up to the loafing, cock-eyed, pot-colored
sons of a coal-scuttle when I ain't here to do it. Turn away that hose,
you mule-eared Fiji!" He turned on Mayo, who stood at one side and was
poising his scrubbing-broom to allow the master to pass. "Get to work,
there, yellow pup! Get to wor