For I did not doubt there would be other foc’sles, and soon.  Life ashore at the Knitting Swede’s was not for me.  Young fool, I was, with all the conceit of my years and inches.  Yet I realized clearly enough I would only be happy with the feel of a deck beneath my feet, and the breath of open water in my nostrils.  I was of the sea, and for the sea.  And if anything were needed to make my decision more certain, there was the little Jewess.  She leaned close, and there was more than a hint of command in her voice.  “Boy, say yes!  I want you to, Boy!”

“Boy!” To me, a nineteen-year-old man, who had just been offered a fighting man’s berth!  “I want you to,” she commanded.  I saw more clearly just what the Swede’s offer meant:  to spend my days in evil living, my drugged will twisted about the slim, dishonest fingers of the wanton; to spend my nights carrying out whatever black rascality the Swede might command.  An ignoble slavery.  Not for me!

“I’ll only ship in a proper ship, Swede,” I said, decisively.

The Swede nodded.  My refusal did not disconcert him; I think his insight had prepared him for it.  But the tension in the room released with a loud gasp of astonishment.  It was unbelievable to those bullies that such an offer could be turned down.  A sailorman refusing unlimited opportunities for getting drunk!  “Gaw’ strike me blind, ’e arn’t got the guts for hit!” a voice cried at my elbow, and I found the Cockney openly sneering into my face.

I saw through his motive immediately.  Cockney wanted the job, and he wasn’t going to allow the Swede to overlook his peculiar qualifications a second time.  Therefore, he would risk battle with me.

I was nothing loath.  I might turn down the job, but I would not turn down a challenge.  I stepped back, and my coat was already on the floor by the time the Swede had a chance to form his words.  And his words showed him also cognizant of the Cockney’s ruse.

“’Vast there, Cocky!  Ay give you the yob.  No need to fight, and get smashed sick.  To-night I got vork—­to put the crew by the Golden Bough!”

The Cockney’s hostility melted into a satisfied smirk.  He called upon his Maker with many blasphemies while he assured the Swede he was the very “proper blushin’ bloke” for the berth.  The crowd straightway lost all interest in the runnership; they had another sensation to occupy them.  At the Swede’s words, a low growl ran around the room, a growl which swelled into a chorus of imprecations.

The Swede was going to ship the crew for the Golden Bough that night!  That meant he needed sailors.  And every man who was in debt to the Swede, or in any way under his thumb (and I suspect every man Jack of them was under his thumb in some fashion or other), quaked in his boots, and thought, “Will the Swede choose me?” For they knew ships, those men, and they knew the Golden Bough.  Some of them had sailed in her.