oximity to the warehouse. In such a
night comes Mead, and a consultation ends in my approaching Mouldytop
the steward with respectful petition for ship's biscuits. These soon
refreshed in my mind Solomon's choosing a dish of herbs and love over a
stalled ox and hatred.

The time now arrived when I was honourably appointed to a job of work. I
felt proud indeed when Meacock explained it to me. It was, to keep
count of the number of bags of grain shipped for the bunker hatch and
another one aft. The tallyman employed by the merchants kept his record,
shouting out his "Una, dos, tres" until each tally of bags was complete;
the ship's representative looked on at the descending bags and made his
oblique strokes in his book accordingly. This work in effect was not so
simple as it sounds; sometimes after a pause the bags would be let
loose suddenly and in quick succession, nor moreover was it possible to
question the other tallyman at the moments of disagreement, since he
spoke no English and I no Spanish.

This delivery of some thousands of bags was to be completed in the course
of a day, but was not. The arrangement of shoots for the bags to travel
down was as neat as a scenic railway: they slid down one, were deflected
by a fixed bag at the foot of it to another shoot at right angles to
it, and so on down to the caverns and the packers. The day's work ended,
but some thousands of bags remained to be put aboard, and I felt that I
was growing used to times and seasons nautical, "the ways of a ship," in
the cook's phrase. When a sergeant-major says, Parade at 8.30, he is
understood to have ordered a parade for 8.15; but I suspect that at sea,
should the tramp be expected away this week, next week is the actual
time of departure.

Newspapers reached the ship from Buenos Aires, one day old, and by that
time having an antiquarian value of twenty centavos, or fourpence. In
consequence we generally went without; yet somehow important news, such as
the result of Cardiff City versus Tottenham Hotspur, was quickly passed
round. Unimportant, such as the latest development in the Anglo-Irish
situation, was considered "politics," and its seeker ignored.

The wharves were haunted, it goes without saying, by rats; more publicly,
by dogs. One grey giant was regarded, especially by the mess-room boy,
with romantic fondness. His history, if his, was current. He was "a
Yankee," but had lost his passage in the North American ship to which he