During all of our time in Honolulu the mate remained very much to himself. I only remember seeing him go ashore a few times and none of us ever met him when off the ship. He led a lonesome life, and after the hard day of driving us with all duties devolving on him alone, I have no doubt he was pretty well done. Thinking it over, I have since come to the conclusion that the terrible Mr. Zerk, the bully and the slave-driver, with a curse always ready on his lips, and a heavy fist prepared to enforce his mandates, was a sort of Mr. Hyde to a very domestic Zerk saving his payday at the rate of a paltry sixty dollars a month against the time of his return home to the wife and kids. His supply of home-made jams and preserved pickles, so sparingly given me on the passage out, confirms this conclusion. True, I hated him cordially during those trying days in Honolulu, but then I was very much of an ass, and no doubt deserved all that was given me. When we went into the stream, things got better; the mate slackened up to the extent of allowing me to tally aboard the lumber for the lining. About this time talk in the fo'c'sle was much concerned with speculation as to who would be our second mate. Martin said he had overheard the mate tell someone from the shore that a man was coming out from Frisco to take the billet. "Not on yer life," said Australia; "they will pick something easy from forward. This mate likes to run things hisself and all he wants is some boy to stay awake nights to call the captain if a squall blows up. They will pick one of us, but whoever he is, he will be a fool." In fact not long afterward judicious soundings were taken forward by that left-handed diplomat, the gloomy Chips. Whoever sent him on his fruitless errand must have received an enlightening message. Chips cornered one man after another and in a deliberate fashion got his ideas as to who was willing to go aft. We were all of one opinion as to who was most fitted for the billet; Old Smith of course was the man. Although he was known as _Old_ Smith, it was more a matter of respect, his age being only about forty or forty-five. He had sailed before the mast since boyhood, most of this time deepwater, back and forth around the Horn, sailing as second mate many times but always going back to the fo'c'sle as his choice. Smith never drank to excess while in Honolulu, was a clean-cut, able seaman, a type as scarce in those days and unknown now. Some hitch ashore occurred in regard to our cargo, for we lay in the stream three days after we were ready to load. In the interval the mate hit upon a brilliant idea. Why he thought of this piece of hazing, for such it was, is merely a guess on my part, but the growing cheerfulness forward must have annoyed him. The band was particularly active after we left the wharf, the concerts on the fo'c'sle head, of an evening, lasting well into the night.