The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear.

'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork.

'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers.

I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again.Yes.

Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate.