mariner. All merchant captains are misters. I am plain Mr. Wilson, at your service, sir."
He spoke with considerable heat; but I was willing to attribute his temper to the weather, which was certainly very trying. And then, again, his men might have given him trouble, for numerous and deep are the worries and anxieties of the British shipmaster. Much is expected of him, and little is given. His crew are slender and ignorant; they charge upon him every outrage that is perpetrated by the owner, and often would they be glad to cut his throat before the land is out of sight; he has no professional prospects, and when at last he runs his ship ashore, or loses her in a gale of wind, or by fire, and is compelled by a Court of Inquiry to withdraw from the vocation which he has pursued, if not adorned, man and boy, for perhaps forty years, there is no other port under his lee for him to bring up in than the establishment at Belvedere, which, I regret to say, is always in want of funds and always inconveniently full.
Therefore it was that when Mr. Wilson spoke with heat about shipmasters styling themselves captains, I made "allowances," as the phrase goes, and after briefly acquiescing in his views, requested to be allowed to see the cabin the agent had offered me. I viewed that cabin, and found it small and ill-lighted, but on the whole it was a better cabin than I had expected to find on board such a ship as the Biddy McDougal. The state-room, in which the meals were taken, was a tolerably cheerful interior, very plainly furnished, with a large skylight over the table, a stove for cold weather, a lamp, a clock in the skylight, and a big telescope in the companion way. There were three cabins forward and two cabins abaft. My cabin was forward, on the starboard side.
Mr. Wilson and I went on deck, and we stood conversing awhile under the shelter of an awning. I asked the number of the crew, the time the ship had occupied in making the outward passage, and so on, and then went ashore, understanding that the vessel would not sail for another week.
"I beheld an immensely stout, red-faced man."
Three days later I paid a second visit to the ship, for by this time I had purchased what I needed, and I wished to see where the cases and parcels had been stowed. On stepping on board I beheld an immensely stout, red-faced man with a wide straw hat on his head, dressed in white drill, seated in a chair with poles attached to it under the short awning which sheltered a portion of the quarterdeck. Two or three sailors were lounging in the forepart of the ship. There was no work apparently doing. I looked about me for Mr. Wilson, the master, and seeing nothing of him, I directed my eyes in search of any individual who might resemble the mate.
"Pray, what's your business?" called out the stout, red-faced man without attempting to rise.
"I wish to see the captain," said I.
"Well, you are looking at him," he answered.
