South Sea Shipmates Author:John Arthur Barry Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: YACHTING IN DEEP WATER CHAPTER I "wanted a person capable of navigating a small craft to any part of the world. Must be sober, steady, and reliable. Good wag... more »es to a good man. Apply by letter to Box 4712, G.P.O., and enclose copies of references." "Hello," I remarked to my friend and shipmate, Phil Scott, as I finished reading, " that seems all right; I wonder what the game is ? Shall we have a try for it? " And I handed my companion the daily newspaper, in the "wanted" column of which the advertisement had caught my eye. We were sitting at the time in the shabby parlour of our boarding- house in Lower Fort Street, in Sydney, New South Wales. " Might as well," replied Phil presently. " There may be something in the business. And you about fill the bill. Anyhow, there's no harm in trying. I was going to propose shark-catching down the harbour if nothing better turned up. Go in and win, old man. It's about time you made some use of that ticket of yours." So, enclosing copies of discharges bearing witness to the fact that I held a master's certificate, and had been in command of all sorts of vessels, I strolled down to the G.P.O., dropped the packet in, and thought no more about the affair. We had been rather unlucky, Phil and I, of late, in our attempts to get a ship. All the coasting craft we knew of were full-handed, and there didn't seem any chance for a vacancy fore or aft until a death took place. Our money, too, was running low, and although old Mrs Briggs, our landlady, was never pressing in her demands, still, we felt it was time to fnake a start, if only in the last ship the hard-up sailor is forced to take refuge in—a coasting collier. But even in these crazy old tubs berths were scarce just now. It was just after the great maritime strike of 1890. And befor...« less