The temperature has already so moderated
that the men are beginning to shed their surplusage of clothing, and
they no longer wrap sacking about their sea-boots. Last evening, in
the second dog-watch, I heard a man actually singing.
The steward has discarded the huge, hacking knife and relaxed to the
extent of engaging in an occasional sober romp with Possum. Wada's
face is no longer solemnly long, and Louis' Oxford accent is more
mellifluous than ever. Mulligan Jacobs and Andy Fay are the same
venomous scorpions they have always been. The three gangsters, with
the clique they lead, have again asserted their tyrrany and thrashed
all the weaklings and feeblings in the forecastle. Charles Davis
resolutely refuses to die, though how he survived that wet and
freezing room of iron through all the weeks off the Horn has elicited
wonder even from Mr. Pike, who has a most accurate knowledge of what
men can stand and what they cannot stand.
How Nietzsche, with his eternal slogan of "Be hard! Be hard!" would
have delighted in Mr.
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