HAWAIIAN SHIPMATES "Damn these rotten oilskins. By ---- what's this?" "Oh, _hell_!" It was black as a pocket on deck and a sudden douse of rain sent us scrambling for our oil clothing. "Damn it I'm lousy, sure as you're born. Ugh!" and similar forceful if inelegant expressions punctuated the night as we struggled into these smelly, sticky rags. They were as paper to the rain; we were wet before we knew it. In the pockets and in every fold millions of cockroaches, whole nations of them, debouched upon the streaming decks. Some of us stole forward and in the light from the fo'c'sle examined things. On the fo'c'sle deck, where we had knocked them in hastily, unhooking the oiled clothing from the bulkhead behind the water butt, were several regiments of roaches. During our two months in Honolulu we had never used oilskins, and, sailor-like, left them hang. In the warm atmosphere the bugs multiplied amid luxurious surroundings with unlimited supplies of delicious linseed-oil to thrive upon. Fortunately we were in the tropics and a wet back did not matter, especially as we always doused ourselves with a bucket of salt water after a wetting by rain, a sure way to prevent colds. As for the evicted roaches, they were no doubt as mad as we were. In the next fine spell we rubbed our oilskins with fresh mixtures of raw oil and a little melted beeswax from the sailmaker's stores. The first job of any magnitude started, after leaving port, was to scrape all bright work, that is, all varnished woodwork, masts and light spars. We then rubbed them down with boiled linseed-oil. This work was done from bo'sun's chairs, using pieces of broken glass as scrapers. The fine shavings fluttered into every crook and corner of the ship, lodging in the coils of rope and providing a constant job of cleaning while the work was under way. Scouse was again elected to the drudgery, but in this instance he became a man of some importance, for Kahemuku and Black Joe were assigned to work with him. He jollied them in a rough, uncouth way and they sat at his feet in respectful worship. They were permanently constituted the knockabout gang of our watch and cleaned out the head every other morning when we were on deck for the washdown. Getting up coal for the galley of a Sunday morning was one of their regular jobs, and after the washdown they were the boys who handled the big deck swabs while the rest of us got the gear off the pins and stowed the washdeck utensils. As for myself, a change had come over the mate, or I too would have been of this crowd. Our relations were fairly cordial again, becoming increasingly so when I loaned him copies of "Midshipman Easy" and "Commodore Junk," books given me by my father when I left home.