[John Barleycorn by Jack London]@TWC D-Link bookJohn Barleycorn CHAPTER IX 1/25
CHAPTER IX. Gradual as was my development as a heavy drinker among the oyster pirates, the real heavy drinking came suddenly, and was the result, not of desire for alcohol, but of an intellectual conviction. The more I saw of the life, the more I was enamoured of it.
I can never forget my thrills the first night I took part in a concerted raid, when we assembled on board the Annie--rough men, big and unafraid, and weazened wharf-rats, some of them ex-convicts, all of them enemies of the law and meriting jail, in sea-boots and sea-gear, talking in gruff low voices, and "Big" George with revolvers strapped about his waist to show that he meant business. Oh, I know, looking back, that the whole thing was sordid and silly.
But I was not looking back in those days when I was rubbing shoulders with John Barleycorn and beginning to accept him.
The life was brave and wild, and I was living the adventure I had read so much about. Nelson, "Young Scratch" they called him, to distinguish him from "Old Scratch," his father, sailed in the sloop Reindeer, partners with one "Clam." Clam was a dare-devil, but Nelson was a reckless maniac.
He was twenty years old, with the body of a Hercules.
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