"That wasn't the yarn I started to tell you though. Capt. Streeter said that he commanded the ship "Seaman's Bride." (I'm pretty sure he's been second mate of her). He was loading teas at Shanghae on owners' account, and they wrote to him to make the quickest passage home he possibly could, and not to spare either spars, sails or rigging. In eighty-four days after leaving Shanghae he dropped anchor off the Battery; the quickest passage ever made. He had carried away a set of top-gallantmasts, sprung the fore topmast, mainmast-head, and fore and main topsail-yards, and blown away two suits of sails. On discharging her, they found two of her deck beams broken, five knees started in the between decks, and four hanging knees in the lower hold broken, and so on till he ran up a list longer than a bill of repairs on an underwriter's job. When he got the ship's damages told, he began on the damages to sailors, and I tell you they were still worse. He killed two men outright and in New York nineteen men went ashore with broken heads, all fixed to order by himself, for his mates didn't know anything, and feared everything in the shape of sailors, and he had to lick them too. I never heard a man tell a straighter story in my life. I believe the old man would beat Tom Pepper at a yarn, and they say he was more than a match for the Old Nick at lying. I'd like to be behind the door when the match was going on, anyway. I never thought he told the truth very hard, but I believe now he's forgotten how, if he ever knew." "Why," I added, "you know he said himself one day, 'I never tell the truth except when a lie won't answer,' and I thought he came nearer telling the truth than usual when he said that." "My opinion of Capt. Streeter," said the mate, "is that he would be a thundering rascal if he dared to be, but he hasn't got the pluck, and he tries to get the credit of it by making up in lies what he hasn't courage to do." "He's a pretty hard man though," said I; "I've seen him handle some sailors very roughly." "Hard man," said the mate; "I wish you could have seen the work in some ships I've been in. What courage does it take for a great two-fisted fellow like him to handle a single sailor. There was old "Blower Aiken," who used to keep a bucket full of coal on the poop to heave at the sailors, and when they were at the main braces, if they didn't haul hard enough to suit, and it wasn't very often they did, he'd get up on the after-house, and jump down on top of one of the men, and then turn to and lick the whole watch. When I was in the packet-ship "Mountaineer," along with 'Bully Nat Johnson,' I was with what I call a hard man. If the man at the wheel got the ship a little off her course, I've seen him pick up a boat-hook and run it through the man's cheek, and keep him standing at the wheel till his trick was done.