318), he confessed to me that he had
tried marriage again, and had a little tenement just outside the
gate of the yard.
Harry Bennett, the man who had the palsy, and was unfeelingly left
on shore when the Alert sailed, came home in the Pilgrim, and I
had the pleasure of helping to get him into the Massachusetts
General Hospital. When he had been there about a week, I went to
see him in his ward, and asked him how he got along. ``Oh!
first-rate usage, sir; not a hand's turn to do, and all your grub
brought to you, sir.'' This is a sailor's paradise,-- not a hand's
turn to do, and all your grub brought to you. But an earthly
paradise may pall. Bennett got tired of in-doors and stillness,
and was soon out again, and set up a stall, covered with canvas,
at the end of one of the bridges, where he could see all the
passers-by, and turn a penny by cakes and ale. The stall in time
disappeared, and I could learn nothing of his last end, if it has
come.
Of the lads who, beside myself, composed the gig's crew, I know
something of all but one. Our bright-eyed, quick-witted little
cockswain, from the Boston public schools, Harry May, or Harry
Bluff, as he was called, with all his songs and gibes, went the
road to ruin as fast as the usual means could carry him.
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