"O, the lime-juicers?" said he. "There's plenty booting in lime-juicers, I guess; though I don't deny but what some of them are soft." And with that he smiled, like a man recalling something. "Look here, that brings a yarn in my head," he resumed, "and for the sake of the joke I'll give myself away. It was in 1874 I shipped mate in the British ship _Maria_, from 'Frisco for Melbourne. She was the queerest craft in some ways that ever I was aboard of. The food was a caution; there was nothing fit to put your lips to but the lime-juice, which was from the end bin no doubt; it used to make me sick to see the men's dinners, and sorry to see my own. The old man was good enough, I guess. Green was his name--a mild, fatherly old galoot. But the hands were the lowest gang I ever handled, and whenever I tried to knock a little spirit into them the old man took their part. It was Gilbert and Sullivan on the high seas; but you bet I wouldn't let any man dictate to me. 'You give me your orders, Captain Green,' I said, 'and you'll find I'll carry them out; that's all you've got to say. You'll find I do my duty,' I said; 'how I do it is my look-out, and there's no man born that's going to give me lessons.' Well, there was plenty dirt on board that _Maria_ first and last. Of course the old man put my back up, and of course he put up the crew's, and I had to regular fight my way through every watch. The men got to hate me, so's I would hear them grit their teeth when I came up. At last one day I saw a big hulking beast of a Dutchman booting the ship's boy. I made one shoot of it off the house and laid that Dutchman out. Up he came, and I laid him out again. 'Now,' I said, 'if there's a kick left in you, just mention it, and I'll stamp your ribs in like a packing-case.' He thought better of it, and never let on; lay there as mild as a deacon at a funeral, and they took him below to reflect on his native Dutchland. One night we got caught in rather a dirty thing about 25 south. I guess we were all asleep, for the first thing I knew there was the fore-royal gone. I ran forward, bawling blue hell; and just as I came by the foremast something struck me right through the fore-arm and stuck there. I put my other hand up, and, by George, it was the grain; the beasts had speared me like a porpoise. 'Cap'n!' I cried. 'What's wrong?' says he. 'They've grained me,' says I. 'Grained you?' says he. 'Well, I've been looking for that.' 'And by God,' I cried, 'I want to have some of these beasts murdered for it!' 'Now, Mr. Nares,' says he, 'you better go below. If I had been one of the men, you'd have got more than this. And I want no more of your language on deck. You've cost me my fore-royal already,' says he; 'and if you carry on, you'll have the three sticks out of her.' That was old man Green's idea of supporting officers. But you wait a bit; the cream's coming. We made Melbourne right enough, and the old man said: 'Mr. Nares, you and me don't draw together.