One of the men swabbing the deck was my old friend the old navy man, whose name I found was Peter Bottom. The two very black men with gold hoops in their ears were there too, the tall one as silent and dignified as ever, but working well, and the shorter one gay and garrulous, but seldom evoking from the other as much as a smile. What these men’s real names were I never knew, and it does not matter what they were. The tall one always went by the name of Tony, and the shorter one by the name of Man’el. Peter Bottom looked up at me, and smiled and winked, and worked nearer with his swab. There was a quarterdeck on the old Clearchus, and a break in the deck with one low step up to the part covered by the after house. I was standing on that step and leaning against the house, for I did not want to get into the water that was flowing so freely. When Peter had worked near enough, he told me in low tones that if I would hunt him up later he would impart some information that might be useful and the beginning of my education. The men were busy nearly all day getting the decks reasonably clear, and the stuff stowed below, and it was not until late in the afternoon that I found Peter Bottom standing by the windlass, gazing out to the eastward. The wind was light, as it had been all day, and it looked very quiet and peaceful out there, with a grayish haze all along the horizon. The water toward the west, on the weather side, was too bright to look at with comfort. There was still a very slight heave of the sea left from the night before. Many of the crew were standing about, or sitting on the forecastle, but they were not saying much. Peter looked up as I approached. He had a sort of permanent smile on his face, a pleasant, humorous expression of perpetual amusement. This deepened to a personal smile when he saw me. “Here you are, my lad,” he said. “I was just thinking {30} about you, and that I ’d have to go after you if I could contrive a way. Now to begin at the beginning, what might your name be?” “Tim,” I answered; “Tim Taycox.” “A good name,” he said. “I had a shipmate named Tim once, but he did no credit to the name. My name ’s Peter Bottom.” That was how I found out his name, although I have used it already. “A queer name, Bottom, but it ’s none of my responsibility, my name. You ’ll call me Peter, and so we ’ll get rid of it. Now, tell me what you know about whaling, so I ’ll know where to begin. There ’s no sense in telling you what you know a’ready. And then you might tell what you know of ships and of sailing, for I s’pose you ’ve knocked about some in small boats, living in New Bedford.” Now, what I really knew about whaling was nothing at all, although I had always heard it talked about, and had absorbed as much in that way as a boy can who has seen nothing but the shore end of it. So I told Peter just that, and I told him of my experiences in boats. “What ’s your lay?” asked Peter Bottom suddenly.