Chapter IX

by Jack London

　　Gradual as was my development as a heavy drinker among the oysterpirates, the real heavy drinking came suddenly, and was theresult, not of desire for alcohol, but of an intellectualconviction.

　　The more I saw of the life, the more I was enamoured of it. I cannever forget my thrills the first night I took part in a concertedraid, when we assembled on board the Annie--rough men, big andunafraid, and weazened wharf-rats, some of them ex-convicts, allof them enemies of the law and meriting jail, in sea-boots andsea-gear, talking in gruff low voices, and "Big" George withrevolvers strapped about his waist to show that he meant business.

　　Oh, I know, looking back, that the whole thing was sordid andsilly. But I was not looking back in those days when I wasrubbing shoulders with John Barleycorn and beginning to accepthim. The life was brave and wild, and I was living the adventureI had read so much about.

　　Nelson, "Young Scratch" they called him, to distinguish him from"Old Scratch," his father, sailed in the sloop Reindeer, partnerswith one "Clam." Clam was a dare-devil, but Nelson was a recklessmaniac. He was twenty years old, with the body of a Hercules.When he was shot in Benicia, a couple of years later, the coronersaid he was the greatest-shouldered man he had ever seen laid on aslab.

　　Nelson could not read or write. He had been "dragged" up by hisfather on San Francisco Bay, and boats were second nature withhim. His strength was prodigious, and his reputation along thewater-front for violence was anything but savoury. He hadBerserker rages and did mad, terrible things. I made hisacquaintance the first cruise of the Razzle Dazzle, and saw himsail the Reindeer in a blow and dredge oysters all around the restof us as we lay at two anchors, troubled with fear of goingashore.

　　He was some man, this Nelson; and when, passing by the Last Chancesaloon, he spoke to me, I felt very proud. But try to imagine mypride when he promptly asked me in to have a drink. I stood atthe bar and drank a glass of beer with him, and talked manfully ofoysters, and boats, and of the mystery of who had put the load ofbuckshot through the Annie's mainsail.

　　We talked and lingered at the bar. It seemed to me strange thatwe lingered. We had had our beer. But who was I to lead the wayoutside when great Nelson chose to lean against the bar? After afew minutes, to my surprise, he asked me to have another drink,which I did. And still we talked, and Nelson evinced no intentionof leaving the bar.

　　Bear with me while I explain the way of my reasoning and of myinnocence. First of all, I was very proud to be in the company ofNelson, who was the most heroic figure among the oyster piratesand bay adventurers. Unfortunately for my stomach and mucousmembranes, Nelson had a strange quirk of nature that made him findhappiness in treating me to beer. I had no moral disinclinationfor beer, and just because I didn't like the taste of it and theweight of it was no reason I should forgo the honour of hiscompany. It was his whim to drink beer, and to have me drink beerwith him. Very well, I would put up with the passing discomfort.

　　So we continued to talk at the bar, and to drink beer ordered andpaid for by Nelson. I think, now, when I look back upon it, thatNelson was curious. He wanted to find out just what kind of agink I was. He wanted to see how many times I'd let him treatwithout offering to treat in return.

　　After I had drunk half a dozen glasses, my policy of temperatenessin mind, I decided that I had had enough for that time. So Imentioned that I was going aboard the Razzle Dazzle, then lying atthe city wharf, a hundred yards away.

　　I said good-bye to Nelson, and went on down the wharf. But, JohnBarleycorn, to the extent of six glasses, went with me. My braintingled and was very much alive. I was uplifted by my sense ofmanhood. I, a truly-true oyster pirate, was going aboard my ownboat after hob-nobbing in the Last Chance with Nelson, thegreatest oyster pirate of us all. Strong in my brain was thevision of us leaning against the bar and drinking beer. Andcurious it was, I decided, this whim of nature that made men happyin spending good money for beer for a fellow like me who didn'twant it.

　　As I pondered this, I recollected that several times other men, incouples, had entered the Last Chance, and first one, then theother, had treated to drinks. I remembered, on the drunk on theIdler, how Scotty and the harpooner and myself had raked andscraped dimes and nickels with which to buy the whisky. Then camemy boy code: when on a day a fellow gave another a "cannon-ball"or a chunk of taffy, on some other day he would expect to receiveback a cannon-ball or a chunk of taffy.

　　That was why Nelson had lingered at the bar. Having bought adrink, he had waited for me to buy one. I had, let him buy sixdrinks and never once offered to treat. And he was the greatNelson! I could feel myself blushing with shame. I sat down onthe stringer-piece of the wharf and buried my face in my hands.And the heat of my shame burned up my neck and into my cheeks andforehead. I have blushed many times in my life, but never have Iexperienced so terrible a blush as that one.

　　And sitting there on the stringer-piece in my shame, I did a greatdeal of thinking and transvaluing of values. I had been bornpoor. Poor I had lived. I had gone hungry on occasion. I hadnever had toys nor playthings like other children. My firstmemories of life were pinched by poverty. The pinch of povertyhad been chronic. I was eight years old when I wore my firstlittle undershirt actually sold in a store across the counter.And then it had been only one little undershirt. When it wassoiled I had to return to the awful home-made things until it waswashed. I had been so proud of it that I insisted on wearing itwithout any outer garment. For the first time I mutinied againstmy mother--mutinied myself into hysteria, until she let me wearthe store undershirt so all the world could see.

　　Only a man who has undergone famine can properly value food; onlysailors and desert-dwellers know the meaning of fresh water. Andonly a child, with a child's imagination, can come to know themeaning of things it has been long denied. I early discoveredthat the only things I could have were those I got for myself. Mymeagre childhood developed meagreness. The first things I hadbeen able to get for myself had been cigarette pictures, cigaretteposters, and cigarette albums. I had not had the spending of themoney I earned, so I traded "extra" newspapers for thesetreasures. I traded duplicates with the other boys, andcirculating, as I did, all about town, I had greater opportunitiesfor trading and acquiring.

　　It was not long before I had complete every series issued by everycigarette manufacturer--such as the Great Race Horses, ParisianBeauties, Women of All Nations, Flags of All Nations, NotedActors, Champion Prize Fighters, etc. And each series I had threedifferent ways: in the card from the cigarette package, in theposter, and in the album.

　　Then I began to accumulate duplicate sets, duplicate albums. Itraded for other things that boys valued and which they usuallybought with money given them by their parents. Naturally, theydid not have the keen sense of values that I had, who was nevergiven money to buy anything. I traded for postage-stamps, forminerals, for curios, for birds' eggs, for marbles (I had a moremagnificent collection of agates than I have ever seen any boypossess--and the nucleus of the collection was a handful worth atleast three dollars, which I had kept as security for twenty centsI loaned to a messenger-boy who was sent to reform school beforehe could redeem them).

　　I'd trade anything and everything for anything else, and turn itover in a dozen more trades until it was transmuted into somethingthat was worth something. I was famous as a trader. I wasnotorious as a miser. I could even make a junkman weep when I haddealings with him. Other boys called me in to sell for them theircollections of bottles, rags, old iron, grain, and gunny-sacks,and five-gallon oil-cans--aye, and gave me a commission for doingit.

　　And this was the thrifty, close-fisted boy, accustomed to slave ata machine for ten cents an hour, who sat on the stringer-piece andconsidered the matter of beer at five cents a glass and gone in amoment with nothing to show for it. I was now with men I admired.I was proud to be with them. Had all my pinching and savingbrought me the equivalent of one of the many thrills which hadbeen mine since I came among the oyster pirates? Then what wasworth while--money or thrills? These men had no horror ofsquandering a nickel, or many nickels. They were magnificentlycareless of money, calling up eight men to drink whisky at tencents a glass, as French Frank had done. Why, Nelson had justspent sixty cents on beer for the two of us.

　　Which was it to be? I was aware that I was making a gravedecision. I was deciding between money and men, betweenniggardliness and romance. Either I must throw overboard all myold values of money and look upon it as something to be flungabout wastefully, or I must throw overboard my comradeship withthese men whose peculiar quirks made them like strong drink.

　　I retraced my steps up the wharf to the Last Chance, where Nelsonstill stood outside. "Come on and have a beer," I invited. Againwe stood at the bar and drank and talked, but this time it was Iwho paid ten cents! a whole hour of my labour at a machine for adrink of something I didn't want and which tasted rotten. But itwasn't difficult. I had achieved a concept. Money no longercounted. It was comradeship that counted. "Have another?" Isaid. And we had another, and I paid for it. Nelson, with thewisdom of the skilled drinker, said to the barkeeper, "Make mine asmall one, Johnny." Johnny nodded and gave him a glass thatcontained only a third as much as the glasses we had beendrinking. Yet the charge was the same--five cents.

　　By this time I was getting nicely jingled, so such extravagancedidn't hurt me much. Besides, I was learning. There was more inthis buying of drinks than mere quantity. I got my finger on it.There was a stage when the beer didn't count at all, but just thespirit of comradeship of drinking together. And, ha!--anotherthing! I, too, could call for small beers and minimise by two-thirds the detestable freightage with which comradeship burdenedone.

　　"I had to go aboard to get some money," I remarked casually, as wedrank, in the hope Nelson would take it as an explanation of why Ihad let him treat six consecutive times.

　　"Oh, well, you didn't have to do that," he answered. "Johnny'lltrust a fellow like you--won't you, Johnny!"

　　"Sure," Johnny agreed, with a smile.

　　"How much you got down against me?" Nelson queried.

　　Johnny pulled out the book he kept behind the bar, found Nelson'spage, and added up the account of several dollars. At once Ibecame possessed with a desire to have a page in that book.Almost it seemed the final badge of manhood.

　　After a couple more drinks, for which I insisted on paying, Nelsondecided to go. We parted true comradely, and I wandered down thewharf to the Razzle Dazzle. Spider was just building the fire forsupper.

　　"Where'd you get it?" he grinned up at me through the opencompanion.

　　"Oh, I've been with Nelson," I said carelessly, trying to hide mypride.

　　Then an idea came to me. Here was another one of them. Now thatI had achieved my concept, I might as well practise it thoroughly."Come on," I said, "up to Johnny's and have a drink."

　　Going up the wharf, we met Clam coming down. Clam was Nelson'spartner, and he was a fine, brave, handsome, moustached man ofthirty--everything, in short, that his nickname did not connote."Come on," I said, "and have a drink." He came. As we turned intothe Last Chance, there was Pat, the Queen's brother, coming out.

　　"What's your hurry?" I greeted him. "We're having a drink. Comeon along." "I've just had one," he demurred. "What of it?--we'rehaving one now," I retorted. And Pat consented to join us, and Imelted my way into his good graces with a couple of glasses ofbeer. Oh! I was learning things that afternoon about JohnBarleycorn. There was more in him than the bad taste when youswallowed him. Here, at the absurd cost of ten cents, a gloomy,grouchy individual, who threatened to become an enemy, was madeinto a good friend. He became even genial, his looks were kindly,and our voices mellowed together as we talked water-front andoyster-bed gossip.

　　"Small beer for me, Johnny," I said, when the others had orderedschooners. Yes, and I said it like the accustomed drinker,carelessly, casually, as a sort of spontaneous thought that hadjust occurred to me. Looking back, I am confident that the onlyone there who guessed I was a tyro at bar-drinking was JohnnyHeinhold.

　　"Where'd he get it?" I overheard Spider confidentially ask Johnny.

　　"Oh, he's been sousin' here with Nelson all afternoon," wasJohnny's answer.

　　I never let on that I'd heard, but proud? Aye, even the barkeeperwas giving me a recommendation as a man. "He's been sousin' herewith Nelson all afternoon." Magic words! The accolade delivered bya barkeeper with a beer glass!

　　I remembered that French Frank had treated Johnny the day I boughtthe Razzle Dazzle. The glasses were filled and we were ready todrink. "Have something yourself, Johnny," I said, with an air ofhaving intended to say it all the time, but of having been atrifle remiss because of the interesting conversation I had beenholding with Clam and Pat.

　　Johnny looked at me with quick sharpness, divining, I am positive,the strides I was making in my education, and poured himselfwhisky from his private bottle. This hit me for a moment on mythrifty side. He had taken a ten-cent drink when the rest of uswere drinking five-cent drinks! But the hurt was only for amoment. I dismissed it as ignoble, remembered my concept, and didnot give myself away.

　　"You'd better put me down in the book for this," I said, when wehad finished the drink. And I had the satisfaction of seeing afresh page devoted to my name and a charge pencilled for a roundof drinks amounting to thirty cents. And I glimpsed, as through agolden haze, a future wherein that page would be much charged, andcrossed off, and charged again.

　　I treated a second time around, and then, to my amazement, Johnnyredeemed himself in that matter of the ten-cent drink. He treatedus around from behind the bar, and I decided that he hadarithmetically evened things up handsomely.

　　"Let's go around to the St. Louis House," Spider suggested when wegot outside. Pat, who had been shovelling coal all day, had gonehome, and Clam had gone upon the Reindeer to cook supper.

　　So around Spider and I went to the St. Louis House--my firstvisit--a huge bar-room, where perhaps fifty men, mostlylongshoremen, were congregated. And there I met Soup Kennedy forthe second time, and Bill Kelley. And Smith, of the Annie,drifted in--he of the belt-buckled revolvers. And Nelson showedup. And I met others, including the Vigy brothers, who ran theplace, and, chiefest of all, Joe Goose, with the wicked eyes, thetwisted nose, and the flowered vest, who played the harmonica likea roystering angel and went on the most atrocious tears that eventhe Oakland water-front could conceive of and admire.

　　As I bought drinks--others treated as well--the thought flickeredacross my mind that Mammy Jennie wasn't going to be repaid much onher loan out of that week's earnings of the Razzle Dazzle. "Butwhat of it?" I thought, or rather, John Barleycorn thought it forme. "You're a man and you're getting acquainted with men. MammyJennie doesn't need the money as promptly as all that. She isn'tstarving. You know that. She's got other money in the bank. Lether wait, and pay her back gradually."

　　And thus it was I learned another trait of John Barleycorn. Heinhibits morality. Wrong conduct that it is impossible for one todo sober, is done quite easily when one is not sober. In fact, itis the only thing one can do, for John Barleycorn's inhibitionrises like a wall between one's immediate desires and long-learnedmorality.

　　I dismissed my thought of debt to Mammy Jennie and proceeded toget acquainted at the trifling expense of some trifling money anda jingle that was growing unpleasant. Who took me on board andput me to bed that night I do not know, but I imagine it must havebeen Spider.