custom prevailed in consequence of the short commons under which we lived.  When the portion of meat was brought down in its wooden kid, or tub, at dinner-time, it was duly divided as fairly as possible into as many parts as there were mouths.  Then one man turned his back on the carver, who holding up each portion, called out, “Who’s this for?” Whatever name was mentioned by the arbitrator, that man owning it received the piece, and had perforce to be satisfied therewith.  Thus justice was done to all in the only way possible, and without any friction whatever.

As some of us were without clothes except what we stood upright in, when we joined, the “slop chest” was opened, and every applicant received from the steward what Captain Slocum thought fit to let him have, being debited with the cost against such wages as he might afterwards earn.  The clothes were certainly of fairly good quality, if the price was high, and exactly suited to our requirements.  Soap, matches, and tobacco were likewise supplied on the same terms, but at higher prices than I had ever heard of before for these necessaries.  After much careful inquiry I ascertained what, in the event of a successful voyage, we were likely to earn.  Each of us were on the two hundredth “lay” or share at $200 per tun, which meant that for every two hundred barrels of oil taken on board, we were entitled to one, which we must sell to the ship at the rate of L40 per tun or L4 per barrel.  Truly a magnificent outlook for young men bound to such a business for three or four years.

*

CHAPTER V

ACTUAL WARFARE.  OUR FIRST WHALE

Simultaneous ideas occurring to several people, or thought transference, whatever one likes to call the phenomenon is too frequent an occurrence in most of our experience to occasion much surprise.  Yet on the occasion to which I am about to refer, the matter was so very marked that few of us who took part in the day’s proceedings are ever likely to forget it.

We were all gathered about the fo’lk’sle scuttle one evening, a few days after the gale referred to in the previous chapter, and the question of whale-fishing came up for discussion.  Until that time, strange as it may seem, no word of this, the central idea of all our minds, had been mooted.  Every man seemed to shun the subject, although we were in daily expectation of being called upon to take an active part in whale-fighting.  Once the ice was broken, nearly all had something to say about it, and very nearly as many addle-headed opinions were ventilated as at a Colney Hatch debating society.  For we none of us knew anything about it.  I was appealed to continually to support this or that theory, but as far as whaling went I could only, like the rest of them, draw upon my imagination for details.  How did a whale act, what were the first steps taken, what chance was there of being saved if your boat