Then, if I must have a beginning for the yarn (said Captain Shreve),
I'll begin with that morning, in this very port of San Francisco, when
I walked out of the Shipping Commissioner's office with my first A.B.'s
discharge in my hand, and a twelve months' pay-day jingling in my
pocket. For I must explain something of my state of mind on that
morning, so you will understand how I got Into Yankee Swope's
blood-ship.
It was the heyday of the crimps, and I walked through the very heart of
crimpdom, along the old East street. It is not a very prepossessing
thoroughfare even to-day, when it masquerades as the Embarcadero, a
sinner reformed. In those days, when it was just East street, it
consisted of solid blocks of ramshackle frame buildings, that housed
all the varieties of sharks and harpies who live off Jack ashore; it
was an ugly, dirty, fascinating way, a street with a garish, besotted
face. But on this morning it seemed the most wonderful avenue in the
world to me. I saw East street through the colorful eyes of youth--the
eyes of Romance.
I stepped along with my chest out and my chin up-tilted. A few paces
behind me a beachcomber wobbled along with my sea-bag on his
shoulder--for what A.B. would demean himself with such labor on
pay-day, when moochers abounded at his heel! I was looking for a
boarding-house.
But it was not the Sailors' Home. That respectable institution might
do very well for boys, and callow ordinary seamen, but it certainly
would not do for a newly made A.B. Nor was I looking for Mother
Harrison's place, as I told Mother's runner, who stuck at my elbow for
a time. Mother Harrison's was known as the quietest, most orderly
house on the street; it might do for those quiet and orderly old
shellbacks whose blood had been chilled by age; but it would never do
for a young A.B., a real man, who was wishful for all the mad living
the beach afforded. No; I was looking for the Knitting Swede's.
Knitting Swede Olson! Remember him, Briggs? A fine hole for a young
fool to seek! But I was a man, remember--a MAN--and that precious
discharge proved it. I was nineteen years old, and manhood bears a
very serious aspect at nineteen. No wonder I was holding my head in
the air. The fellows in my watch would listen to my opinions with
respect, now I was an able seaman. No longer would I scrub the foc'sle
floor while the lazy beggars slept. No longer would I peggy week in
and week out. I was A.B. at last; a full-fledged man! Of course, I
must straightway prove my manhood; so I was bound for the Knitting
Swede's.
Everybody knew the Knitting Swede in those days; every man Jack who
ever joined a ship. They told of him in New York, and London, and
Callao, and Singapore, and in every foc'sle afloat. The king of
crimps! He sat in his barroom, in East street, placidly knitting socks
with four steel needles, and as placidly ignoring every law of God and
man. He ruled the 'Frisco waterfront, did the Knitting Swede, and made
his power felt to the very ends of the seas.
Stories about him were without number. It was the Knitting Swede who
shanghaied the corpse on board the _Tam o' Shanter_. It was the
Knitting Swede who drugged the skipper of the _Sequoia_, and shipped
him in his own foc'sle. It was the Knitting Swede who sent the crowd
of cowboys to sea in the _Enterprise_. It was the Knitting Swede who
was the infamous hero of quite half the dog-watch yarns. It was the
Knitting Swede who was--oh, the very devil!
And it was on this very account I was bound for the Swede's house.
Very simple, and sailorlike, my motive. In my mind's eye I saw a scene
which would be enacted on board my next ship. Some fellow would ask
me--as some fellow always does--"And what house did you put up in, in
'Frisco, Jack?" And I would take the pipe out of my mouth, and answer
in a carefully careless voice, "Oh, I stopped with the Knitting Swede."
And then the whole foc'sle would look at me as one man, and there would
be respect in their eyes. For only very hard cases ever stopped at the
Knitting Swede's.
Well, I found the Swede's place easily enough. And he was there in
person to welcome me. I discovered his appearance to be just what the
stories described--a tall, great paunched man, who bulked gigantic as
he perched on a high stool at the end of the bar, a half-knitted gray
sock in his hands, and an air about him of cow-like contentment. He
possessed a mop of straw-colored hair, and a pair of little, mild, blue
eyes that regarded one with all the innocence of a babe's stare.
He suspended his knitting for a moment, gave me a fat, flabby hand, and
a grin which disclosed a mouthful of yellow teeth.
"_Ja_, you koom for a good time, and, by and by, a good ship," says he.
"Yoost trust the Swede--he treat you right."
So he sent my bag upstairs to a room, accepted my money for
safekeeping, and I set up the drinks for the house.
What? Give him my money for safekeeping? Of course. There was a code
of honor even in crimpdom, you know. I came to the Swede's house of my
own choosing; no runner of his snared me out of a ship. Therefore I
would be permitted to spend the last dollar of my pay-day, chiefly over
his bar, of course, and when the money was gone, he would ship me in a
ship of my own choosing. Unless, of course, men were exceptionally
scarce, and blood money exceptionally high. Crimpdom honor wouldn't
stand much temptation. But I was confident of my ability to look after
myself. I was a man of nineteen, you know.
So, at the Knitting Swede's I was lodged. I spent most of my first day
there in examining and getting acquainted with my fellow lodgers. Aye,
they were a crowd, quite in keeping with the repute of the house; hard
living, hard swearing, hard fighting A.B.'s, for the most part; the
unruly toughs of the five oceans. I swaggered amongst them and thought
myself a very devil of a fellow. I bought them drinks at the Swede's
bar, and listened with immense satisfaction to their loud comments on
my generosity. It was, "He's a fine lad, and no mistake!" and, "He's a
real proper bloke, for certain!" And I ordered up the rounds, and
swung my shoulders, and felt like a "real proper bloke" indeed.
Well, I saw one chap in the house who really attracted me. I should
liked to have chummed with him, and I went out of my way to be friendly
towards him. He was a regular giant of a man, with yellow hair and
frosty eyes, and a very white face. In fact he looked as if he might
have recently been sick, though his huge, muscular frame showed no
effects of an illness. He had a jagged, bluish scar over one eye,
which traveled up his forehead and disappeared beneath his hair,
plainly the result of some terrible clout. But it was not these
things, not his face or size which drew me to him; it was his bearing.
All of the chaps in Swede Olson's house were hard cases. They boasted
of their hardness. But their hardness was the typical tough's
hardness, nine parts bravado, a savagery not difficult to subdue with
an oak belaying pin in the fist of a bucko mate. But the hardness of
this big, scar-faced man was of a different sort. You sensed,
immediately you looked at him, that he possessed a steely armor of
indifference that penetrated to his very heart. He was a real hard
case, a proper nut, a fellow who simply did not care what happened. It
was nothing he said or did, but his demeanor declared plainly he was
utterly reckless of events or consequences. It was amusing to observe
how circumspectly the bullies of the house walked while in his
neighborhood.
But I found him to be a man of silent and lonesome habit, and
temperate. He discouraged my friendly advance with a cold
indifference, and my idea of chumming with him during my pay-day "bust"
soon went glimmering. Yet I admired him mightily from the moment I
first clapped eyes upon him, and endeavored to imitate his carriage of
utter recklessness in my own strutting.