Certainly, on the liners, I had observed nothing that resembled them.
One, a most vivid-faced youth of eighteen, smiled at me from a pair of remarkable Italian eyes.

But he was a dwarf.

So short was he that he was all sea-boots and sou'wester.

And yet he was not entirely Italian.
So certain was I that I asked the mate, who answered morosely: "Him?
Shorty?
He's a dago half-breed.

The other half's Jap or Malay." One old man, who I learned was a bosun, was so decrepit that I thought he had been recently injured.