Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/298

 receive our wages. Our sailor landlords and ladies — the land-sharks — were on hand, willing and eager to  take our earnings as we received them from the purser. These people were in the habit of acting as our treasurers. They would take the sailor’s money and deal it out to him from time to time, being sure, however, to  charge enormously for the service. The sailors were, in fact, swindled without mercy by these pretended friends. Some of our crew were paid off with six and eight hundred dollars.

The next day about a hundred of us squared the yards with our landlords and headed for dear old Boston. When we reached there, several of the crew continued to their homes on Cape Cod, while others went to  Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Before we separated, however, the land-sharks on Ann Street had reaped quite a harvest from us.

All were glad to see me home again. My mother was overjoyed, and told me that the hundred dollars I had sent to her had been a real Godsend, and that it  came just in the "nick of time."

Supper hour drawing near, my youngest sister said to me, "Charlie, what do you want real nice for supper?"

I replied, "Some of mother’s hasty pudding and milk."

They were all much astonished at my simple request, as they had expected to prepare something more elaborate; but we had the hasty pudding, and I assure you it  was delicious.

I soon went down town and bought a suit of clothes at John Earle’s; but before I could wear the pants, I