When the toil was over Jim Billings went below with his mates,
and their dripping clothes soon covered the cabin floor with slush.
"Surely they changed their clothes?" I fancy I hear some innocent asking
that question. Ah! No. The smacksmen have no time for changes of
raiment. Jim huddled himself up like the rest: the crew turned in
soaking, and woke up steaming, just as the men do even nowadays.
Week in, week out, Jim Billings led that hard life, and he grew up
brawny and sound in spite of all his troubles. His frame was a mass of
bone and wire, and no man could accurately measure his strength. His
mind was left vacant of all good impressions; every purely animal
faculty was abnormally developed, and Jim's one notion of relaxation was
to get beastly drunk whenever he had the chance. Like too many more of
those grand seamen, he came to regard himself as an outcast, for he was
cut off from the world during about forty-six weeks of every year, and
he thought that no creature on earth cared for him.
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