And thus, in those long, dark nights, when it was my quarter-watch on deck, and not in the top, and others went skulking and "sogering" about the decks, secure from detection--their identity undiscoverable--my own hapless jacket for ever proclaimed the name of its wearer.

It gave me many a hard job, which otherwise I should have escaped.

When an officer wanted a man for any particular duty--running aloft, say, to communicate some slight order to the captains of the tops--how easy, in that mob of incognitoes, to individualise "_that white jacket_," and dispatch him on the errand.

Then, it would never do for me to hang back when the ropes were being pulled.
Indeed, upon all these occasions, such alacrity and cheerfulness was I obliged to display, that I was frequently held up as an illustrious example of activity, which the rest were called upon to emulate.
"Pull--pull! you lazy lubbers! Look at White-Jacket, there; pull like him!" Oh! how I execrated my luckless garment; how often I scoured the deck with it to give it a tawny hue; how often I supplicated the inexorable Brush, captain of the paint-room, for just one brushful of his invaluable pigment.

Frequently, I meditated giving it a toss overboard; but I had not the resolution.