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"Why, then, my hearties," said I, "'tis thus. I'll sign on as sea-lawyer and scrivener, as well as purser for the ship. Yes, I'll sign articles and voyage with you for a week or a month, or two months, or three.
"By rights, I oughta have that lower bunk. It hurts me to crawl up here. It's inhumanity, that's what it is, and sailors at sea are better protected by the law than they used to be. And I'll have you for a witness to this before the court when we get to Seattle." Mr. Pike stepped into the doorway. "Shut up, you damned sea-lawyer, you," he snarled.
I was made pleasantly welcome, and was soon listening with amusement to the sea-lawyer. "No, if I hadn't have been born an Englishman," was one of his sentiments, "damn me! I'd rather 'a been born a Frenchy! I'd like to see another nation fit to black their boots." Presently after, he developed his views on home politics with similar trenchancy.
A big, blond Norwegian, Hans Olsen by name, strode forward. Unlike the usual self-contained Norseman, he was reputed a "sea-lawyer" in the forecastle. "We haf somedings ter zay for our lifes, yez," he protested. Coke bent and butted him violently in the stomach with his head. The man crashed against the rocky wall, and sat dazed where he had fallen.
Probably in a typhoon in the Japanese seas. That's what the papers will say, and people, too. In you go, Siberia and the salt mines. Dead to the world and kith and kin, though you live fifty years." In such manner John Lewis, commonly known as the "sea-lawyer," settled the matter out of hand. It was a serious moment in the forecastle of the Mary Thomas.
J. Taylor Gause, a big, hearty, shrewd man, who knows every bolt and rivet on the whole premises as Bunyan knew the words of his Bible. "We never have any trouble," replies Mr. Gause; "and it is owing to a way we have of nipping sea-lawyers in the bud." And what, may we ask, are sea-lawyers? "Sea-lawyer is a workman's term. The sea-lawyer is the calculating, dissatisfied, eloquent man.
Sensensé's claims were contested by three chiefs Kofi Blay-chi, Kwáko Bukári, who brought an acute advocate, Ebba of Axim, and Kwáko Jum, a fine specimen of the sea-lawyer; this bumptious black had pulled down the board which marked the Abesebá reef, and had worked the pits to his own profit.
"You'll lump around one of them capstan-bars," Murphy said. The sea-lawyer made no mistake. He knew in all absoluteness that he was choosing between life and death, and he limped over to the capstan and found his place. And as the work started, and as he toiled around and around the narrow circle, Margaret and I shamelessly and loudly laughed our approval.
At this moment the steward, bound aft from the galley, paused in the doorway and listened, grinning. As for Charles Davis, the man had missed his vocation. He should have been a land-lawyer, not a sea-lawyer. "Very well, sir," he went on. "I'll have you testify to that in Seattle, unless you're lying to a helpless sick man, or unless you'll perjure yourself under oath."
The tone of his conversation was more decorous than that of the preceding evening; he gave me a great deal of nautical advice, recommended me to the protection particularly of the first and second lieutenants, who were also his guests, approved of my plan of sleeping at the tailor's, and dismissed me very early, no doubt with a feeling of pleasure at having removed a restraint; for, as I left the room, I just caught the words "Make a damned sea-lawyer, by-and-by."