One
fine, hardy seadog (that is the correct and robust way of talking) used
to strip his apprentice, and make him go out to the bowsprit end when
the vessel was dipping her stem in winter time. He was such a merry
fellow, was this bold seadog, and I could make breezy, "robust" Britons
laugh for hours by my narratives of his drolleries. He would not let
this poor boy eat a morsel of anything until he had mixed the dish with
excrements, and when the lad puked at the food the hardy mariner cut his
head open with a belaying-pin or flung him down the hatchway. Sometimes
the hardy one and the mate lashed the apprentice up in the fore-rigging,
and they had rare sport while he squealed under the sting of the knotted
rope's end. On one night the watch on deck saw a figure dart forward and
spring on the rail; the contumacious boy had stripped himself, and he
was barely saved from throwing his skinny, lacerated carcass into the
sea. Shortly after this the youngest apprentice went below, and found
the ill-used lad standing on a locker, and gibbering fearfully.
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