Before I parted from these boys, who were prodigies of practical wisdom, and profound in all nautical matters, I had learned by comparing the ‘Red Jacket’ and ‘Dreadnought’ with the ‘American Congress’ and ‘Winfield Scott,’ the difference between a first-class clipper and an ordinary emigrant packet, and why some ships were ‘Black-Ballers’ and others ‘Red-Crossers,’ and how to distinguish between a vessel built in Boston and one of British build. One day, in my wanderings in search of work, I rambled up a by-street close to the Brambley Moor Dock, and saw over a butcher’s stall a notice, ‘Boy wanted.’ I applied for the vacancy, and Mr. Goff, the proprietor, a pleasant-faced, prosperous-looking man, engaged me instantly and turned me over to his foreman. This man, a hard, sinister-faced Scotsman, for his fixed scowl, and implacable irascibility, was a twin brother of Spleen. There never was such a constant fault-finder, and, for general cantankerousness, I have never met his like. The necessity of finding some work to do, and of never leaving it, except for a change of work, called forth my utmost efforts to please; but the perpetual scolding and cross tantrums, in which he seemed to take delight, effectually baffled my simple arts. This man’s eyes peculiarly affected me. They were of the colour of mud, and their pin-point pupils sparkled with the cruel malignity of a snake’s. When, in after years, I first looked into the visual orbs of the African crocodile, my first thought was of the eyes of Goff’s foreman. Heaven forbid that after such a long period I should malign him, but I cannot resist the conviction that when he died, those who had known him must have breathed freer! Wretched as was my fortnight’s stay at the butcher’s under the inhumanly-malicious foreman, it was the means of my becoming more intimately acquainted with the stern lords of the sea, and their stately ships; for my work consisted in carrying baskets of fresh provisions to the vessels in the docks; and Time and Fate had so ordered it that through this acquaintance I should be shunted into another line of life.