I quit the James Eads Howe at Ashtabula, after several round trips in her, the length of the Lakes.

I freighted it to Chicago, where I shipped, again as porter, on a package freighter.

* * * * *

The captain of the package freighter Overland should have been anything but a captain.  He was a tall, flabby, dough-faced man, as timid as a child just out of the nursery.

We had taken on, as one of our firemen, a Canuck, who, from the first, boasted that he was a “bad man"....

He intimidated the cook right off.  He punched in a glass partition to emphasise a filthy remark he had made to the head engineer.  He went after me, to bully and domineer me, next.

It looked as if we were in for a hard voyage to the Georgian Bay.

The Canuck, at the very first meal, terrorised the crew that sat down with him.  I looked him over carefully, and realised that something must be done.

He flung a filthy and gratuitous expression my way.  Silently I stepped back from the mess room, untied my apron, and meant to go in and try to face him down.  But at that juncture, my courage failed me, and instead of inviting the rough-neck out on deck, as I had tried to force myself to do, I hurried to the captain’s cabin.

The captain said, “Come in!” to my knock.  He was sitting, of all things, in dirty pajamas, at a desk ... though it was mid-day ... his flabby, grey-white belly exuded over his tight pajama waist-string ... the jacket of the pajamas hung open, with all but one button off.

I complained to the captain of the bully—­repeated how he had bellowed at me to tell the unmentionable skipper he would receive his bumps bloody well, too, if the latter did not stick to his own part of the ship.

I saw fright in the captain’s face....

“It’s up to the chief engineer.”

“Either that fellow goes off this ship or I do.  You’ll have to hire another third cook.”

The boat was sailing in an hour.

I walked back for my few effects.  But, on the way back, I took hold of myself and determined to stick by my guns.  I made up my mind that I would not leave the boat, and that, at the first hostile move of the bully I would oppose him—­besides, what had the fellow done, so far, besides chucking a bluff?

My opportunity to live up to my resolve came at mess for supper.  There was a smoking platter of cabbage set before the boys.

“What the hell!  Who wants to eat bloody cabbage.”

And snatching up a handful of the dripping, greasy vegetable, he was about to fling it into the face of one of the men opposite, when, without giving myself a chance to hesitate, I stepped up quickly and grabbed the “bad man’s” wrist.  The cabbage went high and spattered all over the opposite wall.

The bully glared like an enraged bull at me.

“I’ll—­”