Vol.xxxix

No 6

ETER JOHN was in hard luck. The collar of his dirty shirt was gathered within the iron grasp of the hardest mate on the Pacific Coast, and a bony knee propelled him aft

in a series of excruciating jerks.

"Sto'way, sir!" reported the mate. He shoved Peter John toward the captain, then yanked him back, bringing him up all standing. The skipper, a solemn, relfaced Scotchman, fixed the gasping victim with a hypnotic eye, while he ransacked the corners of his mind for fitting epithets wherewith to blast him. But delay is always dangerous. Before his mental machinery got under weigh, Peter John recovered his wind, and the captain found

himself dead-centered in a whirling vortex of cosmopolitan adjectives.

The eyes of the man at the wheel bulged with astonishment. "Thought the ol' man would a' died of apperplexy," he said afterward to the watch below. "Never heerd sich eloquence. *** The mate," he added, with an admiring glance round the fo'castle, "ain't in it!"

"Cheekiest sto'way I ever saw, sir," growled the mate, after he had choked Peter into silence. "Found him in the fore-hold where the men was abreaking out a barr' of beef. Cheeked me!" puffed the mate. "Called the hands wage slaves an' other insulting names and jabbered about the rights of man. I'll right him'" So speaking he took another turn in Peter John's collar and bumped

his head against the mizzen-mast.

"Lemme go!" gurgled the stowaway. "I'll do for you afore I leaves this 'ere bloomin' ship."

Slowly recovering from his coma, the skipper sternly eyed the transgressor of all maratime conventions. "Ye'll pit the mon in irons, Mr. Tucker," he said, with dignity. "An' he'd be the better o' a leetle mortification of the flesh. A diet o' bread an' water is aye guid for a stiffnecked and rebellious spirit. But ye'll no exercise unnecessary cruelty, sir. Ye ken?"

"Ay, ay, sir!" replied the mate with a knowing wink. To show his perfect understanding of orders he marched the captive below, ironed him to the foremast, larruped him with a yard of wire rope, and left him to reflect on the evils which befall them who go down to the sea in ships. As the mate disappeared up the fore-hatch, Peter called down upon him the seven curses of the Israelites multiplied by the fifty and one blessings of Whitechapel; then he sat down to massage his many bumps and comfort his soul with gutter philosophy.

"This ain't 'arf bad," he muttered, winking at the foremast. "Mister Peter Jawn, you're now a reg'larly hintrojuced passinger aboard this packet, known to the capting and respected of the mate. Yer rations is hallowed for, an' cook's got 'is horders accordin'. *** Ain't been so comfor'ble," he mused, "sin' I turned cartwheels 'longside London busses for ha'pennies. *** I ain't sure," he continued, leering at the mast, "'bout doin' sentry 'go in 'Ide Park, w'ich 'ad its adwantages in the w'y of servant gals, also swipes w'en the sarjent worn't lookin', but it beats a military jail all 'oller. Peter Jawn!" he muttered sleepily, "lie down an' go to 'ell. No! I mean to sleep. Yer three days hout from 'Onalulu, an' it's to be 'oped, on yer 'appy w'y to 'Frisco."

The skipper stared when the mate made his second report on the stowaway. "Been trying to stir up a mutiny," growled Mr. Tucker. "Wanted the hands to chuck you an' me overboard. Seem's he has the bearin's of a island down in the Sou' Seas where all the men's been killed off an' the lan'

fairly swarms with scrumptious gals. I tried," continued the mate, a faraway look in his eyes, "to get the latitude from him. But the little devil cheeked me up an' down. Called me a fat haristocrat! An' a bloated capitalhist! Never heerd such langwidge!" finished the mate in shocked tones.

"I'm surprised at ye, Jack Tucker!" The skipper spoke reproachfully. "You! A married man! A-takin' the beerin's o' desert islan's full o' abandoned weemen wi'out a shirt to their names. Did ye say ye got the beerin's?" he added, cocking his eye aloft.

"No," replied the mate regretfully, "I just said as I didn't get 'em."

"Weel, Mr. Tucker. Do your best wi' the mon. See that he airns his passage."

But Peter John held "theories" concerning the dignity of labor. When the mate suggested swabbing decks and cleaning spittoons as fit and proper occupations for a man of his station, Peter turned in righteous indignation. "Work!" The word shot forth like the spume from a soda bottle. "See you in 'ell fust!" And in the scrimmage which followed, Peter bit, scratched, butted, kicked and cursed, individually and collectively, the captain, mate and

crew.

"Ye'll hae been too hard wi' the laddie?" asked the skipper a day later. "Ye'll hae been too hard, Jack Tucker. I maun try my ain powers o' persuasion. Did ye, Jack?" a moisture gleamed in his eyes-"Did ye, Jack, get the beerin's o' that islan'?"

"You seem kinder anxious!" answered the mate, sarcastically. "'Specially as ye're a married man with two gals of your own a growing up at home."

"It's you I'm thinkin' on, Jack." The Captain gazed on his second with a fatherly air. "I'm thinkin' on you, Jack. Ye see, ye're but a puir weak critter wi' the weemen, Jack Tucker. Ye need a bracin' hand."

"Thank ye kindly! You'd make a fine principal for a young ladies seminary, you would."

Without condescending to answer the sarcasm, and wearing on his red face the look of one animated by the highest moral purpose, the skipper went for

ward to talk with Peter John. He hove to opposite the criminal and puffed out his fat cheeks.

"Hum!" he coughed, producing a belaying pin from beneath his coat tails, "They sayin', my lad, as ye're no' likin' work?"

Peter glanced pointedly at the skipper's ample vest. "Where'd you get that fat?" he asked. "Workin'?"

The captain doubled and gasped as though he had received a poke in the ribs. "You're ir-re-ve-re-nt, my lad," he snorted. "We'll try to bring ye til' a better frame o' mind."

And he reasoned with Peter John, using the most emphatic arguments known to the men of the sea. The belaying pin was swinging with pendulum regularity when Peter John's bullet head suddenly shot into the center of the

while he picked oakum. broke rock, or worked with the road gang, the "Mary Jane," having dischargea part of her cargo, sailed down the coast to San Francisco.

Thirteen weeks devoted to these unaesthetic pursuits developed corns on Peter's hands and wrinkles in his temper. In his spare moments, he covered his cell wall with calculations of the values accruing to the government by reason of his labors; and, for the ex

cellence, quantity,

and quality of his ciphering, he was awarded seven days of the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction. Finally he made

up his mind that he would no longer

assist in the accumulation of the unearned increment.

The trusty who locked him in of nights found him Sone evening in a brown study.

"Think I'll quit," he remarked, as the key turned in the lock.

"All right, guv'nor," grinned the trusty. "What hotel would yer like to hev yer baggage driv' to?"

sharply. Bullets raised spurts of dust all about him, but he held on and gained the woods.

At midnight, the great arc lights of Pier No. 4 brilliantly illumined the open wharf, but under the cargo sheds lurked the blackest shadow. A vessel lay at the wharf. Aboard of her a gang of men were trucking the last loads of freight. The chief officer stood at the gangway hastening

But next evening the laugh was with Peter John. When the road gang formed after work, a ten pound rock lay between his feet.

"Close in there! Close in!" ordered the guard packing them for the lockstep. As Peter shuffled the big stone moved with him. The guard turned to signal the watchers. Peter stooped quickly. The rock thudded against the man's head, then Peter John shot down the road jumping from side to side like a mountain goat at play. As he crossed the zone of fire the watchers' rifles spoke

their movements with language that bordered on the ornamental while on the quarterdeck loomed the burly figure of the captain.

"Hurry, men! Hurry!" urged the mate. "Must make this tide."

Out in the stream

a fussy tug coughed impatiently, the tow line was fastened to the bitts, and then everything ready for a start. Through the blackness under the sheds a gray figure worked its way slowly forward. Soon it reached the end of the dock. Then it sank flat and waited. Presently it commenced to move along the shadow of an elec

tric light pole out to the edge of the dock. The lamps sizzled and burnt low. For a moment partial gloom enveloped both ship and dock and the mate could have sworn that something passed him, and when the lights flared up the grey shadow was gone.

"Cargo aboard, sir!" he reported half an hour afterward.

"Cast off that bow hawser!" roared the captain. "Lively men! Stand by to haul in! Off with that gangway!"