layed him a scurvy trick when it fashioned him into the
thing he was, and it had played him scurvy tricks ever since. What
chance had he to be anything else than he was? And as though answering
my unspoken thought, he wailed:

"I never 'ad no chance, not 'arf a chance! 'Oo was there to send me to
school, or put tommy in my 'ungry belly, or wipe my bloody nose for me,
w'en I was a kiddy? 'Oo ever did anything for me, heh? 'Oo, I s'y?"

"Never mind, Tommy," I said, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder.
"Cheer up. It'll all come right in the end. You've long years before
you, and you can make anything you please of yourself."

"It's a lie! a bloody lie!" he shouted in my face, flinging off the hand.
"It's a lie, and you know it. I'm already myde, an' myde out of leavin's
an' scraps. It's all right for you, 'Ump. You was born a gentleman.
You never knew wot it was to go 'ungry, to cry yerself asleep with yer
little belly gnawin' an' gnawin', like a rat inside yer. It carn't come
right. If I was President of the United Stytes to-morrer, 'ow would it
fill my belly for one time w'en I was a kiddy and it went empty?

"'Ow could it, I s'y? I was born to sufferin' and sorrer. I've had more
cruel sufferin' than any ten men, I 'ave. I've been in orspital arf my
bleedin' life. I've 'ad the fever in Aspinwall, in 'Avana, in New
Orleans. I near died of the scurvy and was rotten with it six months in
Barbadoes. Smallpox in 'Onolulu, two broken legs in Shanghai, pnuemonia
in Unalaska, three busted ribs an' my insides all twisted in 'Frisco.
An' 'ere I am now. Look at me! Look at me! My ribs kicked loose from
my back again. I'll be coughin' blood before eyght bells. 'Ow can it be
myde up to me, I arsk? 'Oo's goin' to do it? Gawd? 'Ow Gawd must 'ave
'ated me w'en 'e signed me on for a voyage in this bloomin' world of
'is!"

This tirade against destiny went on for an hour or more, and then he
buckled to his work, limping and groaning, and in his eyes a great hatred
for all created things. His diagnosis was correct, however, for he was
seized with occasional sicknesses, during which he vomited blood and
suffered great pain. And as he said, it seemed God hated him too much to
let him die, for he ultimately grew better and waxed more malignant than
ever.

Several days more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and went about
his work in a half-hearted way. He was still a sick man, and I more than
once obs