The Blood Ship | Page 5

chin up-tilted. A few paces behind me a beachcomber wobbled along with my sea-bag on his shoulder--for what A.B. would demean himself with such labor on pay-day, when moochers abounded at his heel! I was looking for a boarding-house.
But it was not the Sailors' Home. That respectable institution might do very well for boys, and callow ordinary seamen, but it certainly would not do for a newly made A.B. Nor was I looking for Mother Harrison's place, as I told Mother's runner, who stuck at my elbow for a time. Mother Harrison's was known as the quietest, most orderly house on the street; it might do for those quiet and orderly old shellbacks whose blood had been chilled by age; but it would never do for a young A.B., a real man, who was wishful for all the mad living the beach afforded. No; I was looking for the Knitting Swede's.
Knitting Swede Olson! Remember him, Briggs? A fine hole for a young fool to seek! But I was a man, remember--a MAN--and that precious discharge proved it. I was nineteen years old, and manhood bears a very serious aspect at nineteen. No wonder I was holding my head in the air. The fellows in my watch would listen to my opinions with respect, now I was an able seaman. No longer would I scrub the foc'sle floor while the lazy beggars slept. No longer would I peggy week in and week out. I was A.B. at last; a full-fledged man! Of course, I must straightway prove my manhood; so I was bound for the Knitting Swede's.
Everybody knew the Knitting Swede in those days; every man Jack who ever joined a ship. They told of him in New York, and London, and Callao, and Singapore, and in every foc'sle afloat. The king of crimps! He sat in his barroom, in East street, placidly knitting socks with four steel needles, and as placidly ignoring every law of God and man. He ruled the 'Frisco waterfront, did the Knitting Swede, and made his power felt to the very ends of the seas.
Stories about him were without number. It was the Knitting Swede who shanghaied the corpse on board the _Tam o' Shanter_. It was the Knitting Swede who drugged the skipper of the Sequoia, and shipped him in his own foc'sle. It was the Knitting Swede who sent the crowd of cowboys to sea in the Enterprise. It was the Knitting Swede who was the infamous hero of quite half the dog-watch yarns. It was the Knitting Swede who was--oh, the very devil!
And it was on this very account I was bound for the Swede's house. Very simple, and sailorlike, my motive. In my mind's eye I saw a scene which would be enacted on board my next ship. Some fellow would ask me--as some fellow always does--"And what house did you put up in, in 'Frisco, Jack?" And I would take the pipe out of my mouth, and answer in a carefully careless voice, "Oh, I stopped with the Knitting Swede." And then the whole foc'sle would look at me as one man, and there would be respect in their eyes. For only very hard cases ever stopped at the Knitting Swede's.
Well, I found the Swede's place easily enough. And he was there in person to welcome me. I discovered his appearance to be just what the stories described--a tall, great paunched man, who bulked gigantic as he perched on a high stool at the end of the bar, a half-knitted gray sock in his hands, and an air about him of cow-like contentment. He possessed a mop of straw-colored hair, and a pair of little, mild, blue eyes that regarded one with all the innocence of a babe's stare.
He suspended his knitting for a moment, gave me a fat, flabby hand, and a grin which disclosed a mouthful of yellow teeth.
"Ja, you koom for a good time, and, by and by, a good ship," says he. "Yoost trust the Swede--he treat you right."
So he sent my bag upstairs to a room, accepted my money for safekeeping, and I set up the drinks for the house.
What? Give him my money for safekeeping? Of course. There was a code of honor even in crimpdom, you know. I came to the Swede's house of my own choosing; no runner of his snared me out of a ship. Therefore I would be permitted to spend the last dollar of my pay-day, chiefly over his bar, of course, and when the money was gone, he would ship me in a ship of my own choosing. Unless, of course, men were exceptionally scarce, and blood money exceptionally high. Crimpdom honor wouldn't stand much temptation. But I was confident of my ability to look after myself. I was