Finally, with regret, the time came to depart. A fine touch worthy of that finished sailor, Victor Mathes of Dunkirk, God rest his soul and grant him all prosperity, was the fact that the meal had been paid for in advance and we left our host without the sordid jingling of change or offering of a pauperizing tip, this worthy bowing us to the door, three contented sailors, with extended belts, and empty pockets, and nothing but a ship to call our home. CHAPTER XVIII BRITISH NEIGHBORS The memory of our famous dinner ashore, a feast that was enjoyed over and over again in reminiscences during the succeeding months of the voyage, brings to mind, by very contrast, the sad picture of a body of men who were constantly hungry. These unfortunates were the crew of the iron ship _British Monarch_. We became very friendly with the crowd on the Britisher during our stay in port, finding them there when we came and leaving them behind when we put to sea. These poor devils talked of food, thought of food, and dreamt of food; they did everything but eat it in anything like satisfying quantities. They were a typical English ship's company in this case, carrying a larger number of Britons than was generally the rule. The Dutchman, that is anything hailing from the north of Europe, of course predominated. "Bli me if she ain't the 'ungriest bloody tawnk hout o' Lunnon. Arsh thy calls hit. Sye, hif arsh hever tysted like that, so 'elp me. And they arsts me to heat me fill, the rotters! Blarst 'em! _The bloody rotters!_" The speaker, a native of parts near London, a vivacious and interesting lad named Parker Tweedy, treated us to this and much more in the same vein. Tweedy elected himself a "Hextra 'and" at our mess and helped clean up the kids on many an occasion. In fact many a pocket full of tack and many a half pan of dry hash went from the _Fuller_ to the _British Monarch_. Two very youthful apprentice boys, fair haired and rosy faced, with china-blue eyes, were among her complement. These children, they were nothing more, gloried in the most awful command of profanity. The boys were to be seen wandering about ashore of an evening, their faded blue uniform caps proclaiming them the sons of doting parents who were willing to pay a bonus of fifty pounds in order that their boys might learn the rudiments of seamanship and navigation on the clipper ship _British Monarch_, late of the China and Australia trade. "Uniform is worn--meaning the caps--and the young gentlemen are berthed in separate quarters in the cuddy house." So read the tale that snared them. However, nothing except hunger ever seemed to happen to these lads, and as they flattened their noses against the confectioner's windows ashore, they were unconsciously absorbing lessons that might be of value to them in after life.