74 A TEAR WITH A WHALER 



The Xight King and I disliked each other from 

 the start. It may seem petty now that it's all 

 past, but I raged impotently in the bitterness of 

 outraged pride at being ordered about by tliis 

 black overlord of the quarter-deck. He was not 

 slow to discover my smoldering resentment and 

 came to hate me with a cordiality not far from 

 classic. He kept me busy with some silly job 

 when the other men were smoking their pipes 

 and spinning yarns. If I showed the left-hand- 

 edness of a landlubber in sailorizing.he made me 

 stay on deck my watch below to learn the ropes. 

 If there was dirt or litter to be shoveled over- 

 board, he sang out for me. 



" Clean up dat muck dere, you," he would say 

 with fine contempt. 



The climax of his petty tyrannies came one 

 night on the run to Honolulu when he charged 

 me with some trifling infraction of ship's rules, 

 of which I was not guilty, and ordered me aloft 

 to sit out the watch on the fore yard. The yard 

 wa5 broad, the night was warm, the ship was trav- 

 eling on a steady keel, and physically the pun- 

 ishment was no punishment at all. There was 



