.. greeting with
oaths and comic curses the awkward coal passer who spilled with his
laden wheelbarrow into the slightly lower pit where they stood.
I quit the _James Eads Howe_ at Ashtabula, after several round trips in
her, the length of the Lakes.
I freighted it to Chicago, where I shipped, again as porter, on a
package freighter.
* * * * *
The captain of the package freighter _Overland_ should have been
anything but a captain. He was a tall, flabby, dough-faced man, as timid
as a child just out of the nursery.
We had taken on, as one of our firemen, a Canuck, who, from the first,
boasted that he was a "bad man"....
He intimidated the cook right off. He punched in a glass partition to
emphasise a filthy remark he had made to the head engineer. He went
after me, to bully and domineer me, next.
It looked as if we were in for a hard voyage to the Georgian Bay.
The Canuck, at the very first meal, terrorised the crew that sat down
with him. I looked him over carefully, and realised that something must
be done.
He flung a filthy and gratuitous expression my way. Silently I stepped
back from the mess room, untied my apron, and meant to go in and try to
face him down. But at that juncture, my courage failed me, and instead
of inviting the rough-neck out on deck, as I had tried to force myself
to do, I hurried to the captain's cabin.
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