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. His face was stolid and ox-
like, and as he shuffled and dragged his brogans over the deck he
paused every several steps to place both hands on his abdomen and
execute a queer, pressing, lifting movement. Months were to pass, in
which I saw him do this thousands of times, ere I learned that there
was nothing the matter with him and that his action was purely a
habit. His face reminded me of the Man with the Hoe, save that it
was unthinkably and abysmally stupider. And his name, as I was to
learn, of all names was Sundry Buyers. And he was bosun of the fine
American sailing-ship Elsinore--rated one of the finest sailing-ships
afloat!
Of this group of aged men and boys that moved the luggage along I saw
only one, called Henry, a youth of sixteen, who approximated in the
slightest what I had conceived all sailors to be like.
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