As the vessel was being hauled into the Millwall Docks, spectators were attracted by the disfigured condition of many of the crew.  A gentleman came aboard to solicit business, and after a few preliminary remarks he said—­

“Pardon me, captain, but I cannot help noticing that some of your sailors look as though there had been fighting.  Did they mutiny?”

“Well, no; it was not exactly mutiny, but it was getting near to it.”

“It must have been an anxious time for you, sir,” continued the visitor.

“Well, no; I guess I was not anxious at all, for my officers went about their rough work with some muscular vigour.  The war-paint was soon put on and the rebellion squashed out of them.  The chief officer, understand, is an old hand at the game; and that there young fellow, the second officer, takes to the business kindly.  So we’ll get along right away.”

When the vessel was moored and the decks cleared up, the second officer and the boatswain asked the captain’s permission to go ashore for the evening.  This was granted, with a strong admonition to keep straight and return aboard sober.  The boatswain was a short, thick-set man, with no education, but a sailor all over in his habits, manner, and conversation, and was just the kind of person to have as a companion if there was any trouble about.  The two sailors were like schoolboys on a holiday.  They were well received by their friends, male and female.  In the West of London both were objects of interest, and told their tales with unfailing exaggeration.  The boatswain was especially attractive, owing to his rugged personality and his unaffected manner.  His sanguinary tales of American packet-ship life were much canvassed for, and being a good story-teller, he embellished them with incidents that gave them a fine finishing touch.  He was asked by some young ladies if he had ever done any courting.

“Oh yes,” said he; “I have mixed a lot of that up with other things.  The very last time I was stranded in Chili I got on courting a girl whose mother kept a bit of an hotel, and I was getting on famously, when one day the old lady told me I wasn’t to come about her house after her daughter; but I kept on going in a sort of secret way, and one night I was sitting in what you would call the kitchen, and the old girl sneaked in with a great big stick.  I saw the fury in her eye.  She made a go for me.  I couldn’t get out, so I bobbed under a four-legged wooden table, picked it up on my shoulders, and tried to protect my legs as much as I could.  The girl screamed, and rushed to open the door, and then called out for me to run.  I didn’t need any telling.  I rushed out, the old witch laying on the table with all her might until I got out of her reach.  And that is the way I am here, because I shipped at once aboard the Betty Sharp, for fear I might be copped and put in choky by the old fiend.”

“Have you heard from your sweetheart since?” asked one of the ladies.