Thrice Armed by Harold Bindloss — Read

It was about five o'clock in the evening when Jimmy stood on the Vancouver wharf beside an express wagon, from which the teamster had just flung down what appeared to him an inordinate quantity of baggage. He was then attired in a steamboat officer's jacket, from which he had removed a row of buttons as well as the braid on the cuffs, an old pair of Valentine's white duck trousers carefully mended with sail-sewing twine, a pair of canvas shoes with a burst in one of them, and a somewhat dilapidated man-o'-war cap. In this get-up he expected to pass muster as a professional yacht-hand, though as yet there were very few men who followed that calling in Vancouver or Victoria. Had he been brought up in England he might have felt a little more uncomfortable than he did, but the average Westerner is troubled by no false pride, and is usually willing to earn the money he requires by any means available.

Still, Jimmy was not altogether at ease, for he had, at least to some extent, become endued with his comrades' notions during the time he had spent in the mail-boats and the English warship.