Our boat was much slower than the packets and the passenger boats which had relays of horses at stations and went pretty fast, and had good cabins for the passengers, too, and cooks and stewards, serving fine meals; while all our cooking was done by the captain or one of our hands, though sometimes we carried a cook.
Bill, the man who answered "Ay, ay, sir!" when the captain asked him to witness that he had refused me passage on the boat, was a salt-water sailor who had signed on with the boat while drunk at Albany and now said he was going to Buffalo to try sailing on the Lakes.

The other man was a green Irishman called Paddy, though I suppose that was not his name.

He was good only as a human derrick or crane.

We used to look upon all Irishmen as jokes in those days, and I suppose they realized it.
Paddy used to sing Irish comeallyes on the deck as we moved along through the country; and usually got knocked down by a low bridge at least once a day as he sang, or sat dreaming in silence.

Bill despised Paddy because he was a landsman, and used to drown Paddy's Irish songs with his sailor's chanties roared out at the top of his voice.