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In order to launch my story fairly it is necessary to go back a little. On my return to London from my last voyage, with a pay-day of some £20, I had done two important things, though with the easy confidence of youth, and especially seafaring youth, their gravity had not impressed me. I got married and “passed” for chief mate. Neither my wife nor myself had a friend in the world, any certain employment or a stick of “plenishing.” And after a honeymoon of a day or two the tiny group of sovereigns nestling at the bottom of my right-hand trousers pocket dwindled so that I could hardly jingle them. There were plenty of ships in London at the time, but although I walked the soles fairly off my boots around the dreary docks never a one could I find where a second mate even was wanted. I found a good many where the officers were foreigners; Germans or Scandinavians; still more “where they didn’t keep the officers by the ship in dock,” and one day I was offered a chance to go first mate of a 1500 ton tramp to the Baltic at £5 a month! In spite of the shameful inadequacy of the salary I rushed off to the Surrey Commercial Docks after the berth, and arrived on board of her breathless, only to find that another man had got to windward of me, having earlier information. Sadly I trudged back again and recommenced my search, my funds all but gone and no credit obtainable. But now I couldn’t even get a ship before the mast! Gangs of ruffianly dock-wallopers fought like tigers at the “chain-locker,” whenever a skipper seeking a hand or two poked his head out of one of the doors, flourishing their discharges (?) in the air as they surged around the half-scared man. Anxious and indeed almost despairing as I was, I could not compete with that crowd, and I don’t believe I should ever have got a ship, but that one day a stalwart, pleasant-faced man opened the door. When the gang began to mob him he roared, “I don’ want navvies—I want a sailor-man: git t’ hell out o’ that, and let one o’ them behind ye come here.” Instantly I flung myself into the crowd and thrust my way up to him. He took my proffered discharge, but handed it back at once saying, “I don’t want no steamboat sailors.” He didn’t understand the thing, being a Nova Scotiaman. I screamed back the truth at him, and pushed my way past him into the office, my heart fairly thumping with excitement at the prospect of £3 a month to go to Nova Scotia in the middle of winter. I winced a little when I found that she was only a brigantine, but the advance note for £3 was such a godsend that I could only be thankful.