"I hope them bulls aft gives us a fair deal," went on Joe. We were at breakfast, both watches together, assembled outside the fo'c'sle doors.
"Fair deal!" snapped Old Smith as he speared a spud. "Say, you young heifer, do you think you was brung all the way out to Honolulu for to loll back at your ease and eat the bread fruit, that we reads about, offen the fatness of the land, without no toil nor trouble? You'll get your damned good whack of sweatin' here. I know these ships, and it won't be just because the weather is hot, neither."
This was followed by dire predictions of hard grinding to come, ghastly prospects fathomed from the depth of experience by such masters of discouragement as Jimmy Marshall and Australia.
"Say, shut up, will you! Maybe it won't be so bad," piped Frenchy, who never liked to have his meals interrupted, especially when we were breakfasting on dry hash made with potatoes and onions, a real feed much needed by our hungry crowd. We had turned out at dawn for a hasty washdown, had put the long boat over the side, and rousing out a number of large manila hawsers, had flaked them down in the boat ready for warping. The cable was hove short and the quarter moorings were taken in. In addition to this a number of the men under the second mate had completed the rigging of the cargo gear. The carpenter, with me helping him, had rigged the _dolly_, wedging it under the pinrail on the starboard side just forward of the main hatch with blocks of wood and a small jackscrew. The large cargo blocks had been hooked and moused to the pendants, and the falls were rove, all for the starboard side, as the skipper had inspected the berth and that was to be our side for discharging at the Brewer Wharf.
Breakfast came as a rest, a breathing and a talking spell with a good day's work already to our credit. The change in routine, however, made the work seem easy enough, for we arose from our full night of rest with a feeling of wonderful vitality. Word came out that an island steamer would hold the berth at the Brewer Wharf until noon, and we were to warp in to the Oceanic Steamship landing to allow the port warden and the agents the opportunity to inspect the hatches and make a survey of the condition of the cargo, at the same time bringing us that much nearer our berth.
