Ordinarily one might suppose that this last leg of the long passage home would be the most pleasant of all and that as port loomed ahead we would once more feel the genial glow of good fellowship that blossomed so warm upon our approach to Honolulu. But we were apparently nearing a bleak coast; a hard material country where the sailor-man was on a strictly commercial basis of so little per month, and more men than billets; the crew would go, of course, and no one cared how much they cursed the ship, for they would do that anyway. The grub was worse because it was older; weevils were more in evidence than before, not to mention other pests such as rats and cockroaches, and we were feeling the effect of too close associations, a period of discontent, soon to change, but at that time most trying. Also, it was hot, as hot as it ever gets on the sea; our irritation became worse with every delay of head wind or of calm. Mr. Zerk, for reasons unknown to us, became exceedingly brash; he went about looking for trouble, and always found it, working us without mercy in the heat of the day, and horsing us about at night. His relations with the second mate were strained more than ever, and some of the men of the starboard watch came forward with a tale of a big row between the skipper and the mate, the sounds having come up from the after companion; of course, anything like that would never take place upon those well-disciplined decks. This succession of troubles had its climax one morning when the mate set upon Chips, that most gloomy and industrious of all carpenters. The lanky one, in returning from the poop with the running lights, had through some carelessness allowed several drops of oil to smirch the spotless planks. "You dirty low-down bum! What do you mean by spilling that grease all over the deck?" "Ay spill nothing!" shouted Chips, his slow soul riled to the point of protest at this latest insult. "You didn't, hey? Well, _I'll_ spill something!" The mate jumped down the ladder from the poop and made after Chips, who was in the waist. Chips saw him coming, and as he had a heavy brass side light in each hand, he was helpless. Realizing this, he started to run and reached the door of the lamp locker as the mate came up to him. Chips turned, dropping the lights, and as he faced the furious first officer, that gentleman let drive a terrific crack with his right, fetching Chips just below the ear, and lifting him clean over the sill into the lamp locker. The mate went in after Chips and for a few minutes the place was in an uproar. The mate stepped out, his hands covered with blood. We were taking down the gear from the pins, after the washdown, and a number of us stood horrified in the waist, a feeling of deep repulsion coming over us. A big splotch of blood on the shirt front of the mate must have come from Chips' nose.