Fo'castle Waltz

"I just called to let you know I'm back, Captain Flint, and..."

Well! I've heard volcanic outbursts when the Chief Engineer roared across at that ship alongside when we were propped up in drydock and then again when Perry blasted the Mate down in Rio Santiago, and when the red-headed Second let me have it for almost losing our tow line, and time and again when the Swede Mate sounded off with his thunder at the overflowing fuel oil, again at me when I mutinied, and on many other occasions with good cause.

But any of them and all of them, in chorus, were mute and timid compared to that blast of heroic blasphemy that almost split my ear drum. And with a last titanic bellow, he slammed his receiver with such a crash it set my booth a-tremble and its door flapping like the loose end of a tarpaulin in a gale.

I never did get over my side of the story, and I can't tell, after all these years, to what degree my social and professional position has been impaired by misrepresentation. So, to clear my position, and because a sweet dame with a nice round neck (who went off and married a guy who collects bugs in the New Hebrides) said over her teacup somebody ought to put me in a book sometime, and nobody did after all these years—and because of a virgin cat—this book has been written.

End of book