You can imagine how gay I used to
feel with flowers in my whiskers. That was one of the reasons why
I left her finally.
"But them was the days! Me an' Bull McGinty was the two finest
men north or south of the Line. We was worth six ordinary white
men each, and twenty blacks, and we was respected. I first met
Bull McGinty in Shanghai Nelson's boarding house, over in Oregon
Street, not three blocks from where we're settin' now. I was
twenty years old an' holdin' a second mate's ticket, for I'd been
battin' around the world on clipper ships since I was fourteen,
an' I'd bit my way to the front quicker than most. Bull was a big
dark man, edgin' up onto the thirty mark. His great grandmother'd
been a half-breed Batavian nigger, and his father was Irish. Bull
himself was nothin', havin' been born at sea, a thousand miles
from the nearest land. However, that ain't got nothin' to do with
the story. Bull McGinty was skipper an' owner of the schooner
_Dashin' Wave_, 258 tons net register, when I met him in Shanghai
Nelson's place. Also he was broke, with the _Dashin' Wave_ lyin'
out in the stream off Mission Rock with a Honolulu Chinaman
aboard as crew and watchman, while Bull hustled around shore
tryin' to raise funds to outfit her for another trip to the
Islands.
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