Beadle's Dime Novels No. 94: The Mad Skipper — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Frank and his faithful chum stepped into the water and struck out for the ship. Being excellent swimmers, they soon gained the bows. of the vessel; then, by means of the cable, they clambered to the deck. This had evidently been. recently scrubbed ; it was as clean as a “milkmaid’s apron,” and was not diagqused by straggling ends of running rigging, these being neatly coiled upon the belaying-pins. The turns of the cable were nicely arranged. about the windlass; not even a kink was out of place, and the two seamen also noticed that the jibs were as carefully and tastefully stowed as those of a man-of-war. The rigging, too, was “taut and trim,” the yards squarely balanced, and the sails furled with true nauti- cal precision. “ Me think this very fine ship,” remarked Joe. “ Captain very particular man. Make crew work plenty, though, me guess.” “ Ay, ay,” replied Frank, “ the captain of this craft evident- ly likes to have every thing ship-shape.” “Yees. He must be very good skipper.” “Paps youll alter your mind when you come to know him, my lad,” was uttered in a deep voice, and turning, the two men saw an old, eves ee tar, looking at them across the windlass. In a few words, Frank meals the necessary explanations, to which the sailor listened in grim silence. “T’m afraid you’ve made a bad move in comin’ aboard this. craft.” “ Why so? “Tn the first place, because the officers won’t suit you; in the next, because every man of the crew, with the exception of myself and two others, is composed of the most outland- ish set of savages your eyes ever lighted on. My only reason for not desarting is because I don’t care about losin’ my share of the profits which will come from the cargo—this being a full ship. The three mates are New-Zealanders, so that all the heathens forward have every thing pretty much their own way. The captain seems to have a most unnat'ral liking for these wild islanders, as you may know-by lis making mates of the three,” “ You don’t mean to say—” Cconnicloooks.com