You had better have your back
sheathed, and your head coppered, and your feet shod, and make out
your log for California for life!" or else something of this kind-
"Before you get to Boston the hides will wear the hair off your head,
and you'll take up all your wages in clothes, and won't have enough
left to buy a wig with!"
The flogging was seldom if ever alluded to by us, in the forecastle.
If any one was inclined to talk about it, the others, with a
delicacy which I hardly expected to find among them, always stopped
him, or turned the subject. But the behavior of the two men who were
flogged toward one another showed a delicacy and a sense of honor,
which would have been worthy of admiration in the highest walks of
life. Sam knew that the other had suffered solely on his account,
and in all his complaints, he said that if he alone had been
flogged, it would have been nothing; but that he never could see
that man without thinking what had been the means of bringing that
disgrace upon him; and John never, by word or deed, let anything
escape him to remind the other that it was by interfering to save
his shipmate, that he had suffered.
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