There is no estimating the pride I took in this grandeur, or the affection that began to swell and grow in me for those people.

I could not know how the lordly steamboatman scorns that sort of presumption in a mere landsman.

I particularly longed to acquire the least trifle of notice from the big stormy mate, and I was on the alert for an opportunity to do him a service to that end.

It came at last.

The riotous powwow of setting a spar was going on down on the forecastle, and I went down there and stood around in the way--or mostly skipping out of it--till the mate suddenly roared a general order for somebody to bring him a capstan bar.