Chapter 1
Jim earned his living as a "ship-chandler's water-clerk." Job
description: sail out to greet ships coming in to port and guide them back to
your boss's shop, a "where you can get everything to make [a ship]
seaworthy and beautiful." (This position was not yet called
"marketing.") Competent and popular wherever he worked, Jim
nevertheless tended to up and leave for no apparent reason and move on to
another port every so often. After a few pages of Jim-in-a-nutshell description,
the story jumps backward from Jim's life as a water-clerk to young Jim at the
beginning of his sea career, training on a ship.
The narrative begins with a sudden crisis. Jim stands frozen in the confusion (a
feeling likely shared by the reader) as his ship rushes to a nearby collision to
attempt a rescue. Though always the hero in his own frequent daydreams, Jim is
too late to participate in this real situation. Jim listens in cold jealousy to
the hero of the day ("a boy with a face like a girl's and big grey
eyes") recount his own courageous tale of fishing a much larger sailor out
of the sea with a boat-hook.
