Joe said he could put up with it if the money was all right.  And, being assured that the money was more than all right, he agreed to go down to Plymouth with a party of the gentleman’s friends and try his hand for a year or two at laying pirates by the heel.

But when our Joe got out to sea and awoke from a terrible bout of intoxication on the schooner sailed by the gentleman with a hobby, he discovered that, instead of being on the ocean to catch pirates, he was there as a pirate himself.  The boy had run away from home to make a fortune catching wicked men; he now found that his bread and butter depended upon his ability in cracking the heads of perfectly honest men.  Some of the new hands wanted to be put back when the situation was explained to them, but Joe was among those who felt respect for the villainous seamen on board (the ship carried 130 men, he says,) who declared that they had as lief be pirates as catch pirates, and it was no odds to them what flag they sailed under or for what purpose.

“On board,” splutters Joe, striking another match, “there was a turr’ble fellow—­Jack Armstrong—­six foot five in socks, strong’s a lion, brave’s a tiger.  He and me use to fight—­every day, pretty near.  Bang! crack! g-r-r-r-r-r!  I used to beat him—­easy!  I was turr’bly strong.  Make’s nose bleed—­bung’s eyes up—­split’s lips.  Ess!  And there was a mulatto aboard.  Metsi-metsi-metsi-can, he was.”

“He means Mexican,” whispers Mr. Wells behind his hand.  “That’s what Joe means.  A Mexican.”  And then he gets up from his chair and shouts into Joe’s ear, “You mean a Mex-i-can, Joe.”

“Ess; a Metsican,” splutters Joe, getting purple in the face under the impression of a contradiction.  “That’s what I said—­Metsican.  Used to call him Black Peter.  I’ve seen him eat rattlesnake.  Swallow him clean down.  Like this, he would—­Gollop!” Here Mr. Wells goes off into a quiet chuckle of scepticism, one finger crooked over his pipe-stem, his sightless eyes blinking at the coals.  “Great big bull of a feller.  ‘Normous chest.  Legs o’ granite.  Used ter fight wi’ bar o’ iron.  Ho!  Ho!  Weighed half a hunded.  Tremenjus weapon!  If he hit you, you know—­dash!—­out go your brains.  Ho! ho!  He was fond o’ me.  If I saw him sulky, or anythin’, up I’d go, an’ ‘What’s matter?’ I’d say.  Peter’d say, ‘So-a-so.’  ‘Oh blow,’ I’d say, and walk off.  He looked up to me.  R’spected me.  Peter was always behind me in action.  Always.  Never let me be killed.  Never! Bang!  Crack! Brain any man who come near me.  Fond o’ me.”

Joe, we gather, was fourteen years at sea without ever coming home.  He was a pirate in the China seas for years.  He was in the Baltic during the Crimea.  He has been to the bottom of the sea two or three times.  He has fought hand-to-hand with many a shark.  He has been shipwrecked a score of times.  The experience of St. Paul in a good cause hardly exceeds for suffering the experience of Old Joe in a bad one.  For six days and seven nights he and seven others were tossed about the sea without food in a row-boat.  Two of the men died, and were eaten by the rest, with the exception of Joe, who could not stomach cannibalism for all he was such a terrible fellow.  Then they were picked up by the famous Alabama, and Joe fought in the great American War of North versus South.