Often, of course, the talk in the forecastle turned on drink, and the men told of their more exciting or humorous drunks, remembering such passages more keenly, with greater delight, than all the other passages of their adventurous lives.
In the forecastle, the oldest man, fat and fifty, was Louis.

He was a broken skipper.

John Barleycorn had thrown him, and he was winding up his career where he had begun it, in the forecastle.

His case made quite an impression on me.

John Barleycorn did other things beside kill a man.
He hadn't killed Louis.