Tale of the Sea-Faring Man

I purchased a glass of stiff Maine grog for a salty son of the sea,
And he confidentially leaned on the bar and spun this yarn for me:

" 'Twas down in the aidge of the Saragos' in the nineteenth latitood
That I think I see the dumdest sight that ever a sailor viewed.

"We was dobbin' along with dumpy sails in a nigh-about dead calm,
When the forrard watch give a good long squint, and he yapped a loud alarm.

"And there afloat, two points to port, was a shark, a reg'lar he'un,
The biggest shark I've ever seen outside the
Caribbeun.

"The old man reckoned he'd have his pelt, and he yelled to the second mate,
Sling over the biggest hook ye've got, with a good big plug o' bait.'

"We dragged her astern and his nobs come on, and then with a mighty splosh,
He gulped the pork, he bit the rope, and away he went, by gosh!

"But when he'd hipered two miles to lee, and begun to wopse and wheel,
We figgered he found the lunch he had a rayther too hearty meal.

"Yet right behind the quarter wash the critter swum next day,
And though he gobbled the bait we threw, he allus got away.

"And at last, do ye know, we liked the cuss for the way he showed his spunk,
And we named him Pete, and shared salt hoss, and tossed him a daily junk.

"He got the orts of the fish we caught and, all in all, I'll bet
A two-hoss waggin wouldn't haul the stuff that critter et.

"Then one day Jones, the heftiest man we had in all the crew,
Went off the rail with a swinging sail, and Pete he et him too.

"From that time on we tipped our caps to the razor-backed old brute,
--We tipped our caps and pulled a bow in a most profound salute;

"For 'twas only due from a decent crew to honor a comrade's grave,
Though 'twas odd, I'll own, to have a tomb afloat on the ocean wave.

"And the old man ordered the fish lines coiled, for he 'lowed 'twarn't proper game
To bob behind for a grave-yard lot; so Pete swum on the same,

"--Swum on the same, though we come to see that he didn't act quite right.
For he grew as thin's a belayin' pin on that goldurned appetite.

"And we couldn't figger the secret out, though the second mate was firm
That stowed 'tween decks in the shark's insides was a bastin' big tape-worm.

"As we didn't have no vermifuge we could only mourn for Pete,
And steal salt hoss when the mate wam't round, and give him lots to eat.

"But at last he rolled his glassy eyes and give an awful chum,
And turned his belly up to view and drifted off astern.

"He rolled and sogged on a logy swell like a nut-cake dropped in fat,
And it 'peared to all there was suthin' wrong with the shark we was lookin' at.

"So the old man ordered the gig crew up, and the bos'n piped a tune,
And away we sploshed with the mate ahead a-grippin' a big harpoon.

"He slung the thing when we drew abreast and we hacked like all-possessed;
But the shark was sleepin' sound, you bet, for we never broke his rest.

"--We never broke his peaceful snooze, though plunk to the eyelet head
Went rippin' in that big harpoon,--for, you see, the shark was dead.

"And the old man ordered an ortopsy, for the thing seemed mighty queer
That an able-bodied, hearty shark was deader'n a door-knob here.

"So the mate was medical 'xaminer, and he straddled the critter's back
And laid him open from deck to keel with one almighty whack.

"Now listen close while I tell the rest, for this is the story's peth,
--You may take my nob for a scuttle-butt if the shark warn't starved to death.

"Starved to death, though the sea was full of the fattest kind of fish,
--Starved, though a seaman plump and sound had tumbled in his dish,

"--Starved though he had in his gorged insides
I'll bet a hundredweight
Of every kind of a floating thing from codfish down to bait.

"And this was how: He'd spied, we judged, an empty cask afloat,
And bein' a glutten he grabbed the thing and tucked it down his throat.

"The cask, we found, had an open end--the bottom was good and stout
--The shark had swallowed the whole end fust
--the open end was out.

"And ev'ry mossel the critter et was scooped by the cask inside;
His vittles failed to reach the spot, and so the poor shark died."

This is a sample of weird, wild yarns the mariners relate
Under the spur of a glass of grog in a Prohibition State.