We were a queer company; three whites and eight blacks. Cap’n Thomas Pratt was a first rate seaman when he wasn’t in liquor, although too easy-going to suit some people. He didn’t believe in knocking the hands about, and always said that swearing at ’em did just as much good. I have met some people who didn’t think even that was right, but they were mostly preachers or lubbers who knew mighty little of merchant sailors. Let them try moral suasion on a mule for a while if they want to see how it works with a sailor. If you never swear at ’em, they get lazy and despise you, besides thinking you a milk-sop. But as I said, Cap’n Pratt took a drop too much now and then; mostly after dinner, for he kept pretty straight until the sun was taken. I’m no teetotlar myself, though I was green enough to sign the pledge before I’d got to what they call “the age of reason.” Still, it goes against my idees for a skipper to drink much when on duty, and if Pratt hadn’t owned his schooner, I reckon he’d lost his berth long before I knew him. After working out his sights he used to take a drink by way of celebration in case the day’s run had been good, and if we’d made a poor record he just took something to drown his sorrows—and sometimes it needed a deal of liquor to drown ’em. There was no second mate, so the Cap’n and me stood watch and watch. We had a negro bo’s’un called Prince Saunders—a strapping big fellow as black as the ace of spades—who was on duty all day from seven in the morning till six at night. Then he turned in till next day, unless all hands were called. Prince acted as general overseer, and the way he made those darkeys come to time wasn’t slow. In fact, I wouldn’t ask for a better bo’s’un or a better crew. All the Cap’n and me had to do was to lay out the day’s work and Prince saw that it was done. The three fellows in my watch looked exactly alike—I never could tell one negro from another—so I called ’em Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I forgot what Pratt named his. Steamers were scarce in the Gulf those days, and people wanting to go any distance had to take passage on whatever craft they could find, which was how we came to have the Honorable Mr. Warriner for a passenger. I couldn’t see as he had any more honor than lots of other people, but all of his mail was addressed that way, and Pratt said it was a kind of title they have on shore. He was a red faced, pompous old duck, with too much corporation, and looked as much out of place on the deck of that little schooner as I would scraping before Queen Victoria. Every time we had a squall he got almighty sick, and when a good hot day came how he did sweat and mop his face! I really pitied him. Once he said to me: “Mr. Hunt, I would give any reasonable amount to be as slender as you are.”