Content Warning: This section of the guide includes mention of suicide and suicidal ideation.

The chapter begins with a description of Jim as a powerfully built man just under six feet tall, with immaculate all-white clothing, a deep voice, and slightly stooped posture reminiscent of a charging bull. Employed as a water-clerk in multiple port cities, Jim’s job is to race out in a boat to meet ships arriving in port, greet the captain and present the card of the ship-chandler employing him. Jim then guides the captain to the shop of that particular ship-chandler for all manner of ship and seamen’s supplies. Good at his job, Jim is paid well, but he nevertheless has a habit of leaving his port and employer without explanation and moving on to another. He is known simply as Jim the water-clerk.

The narrative then moves backward in time to describe Jim’s childhood. One of five sons, Jim grows up in a parsonage, but after he learns through books a love of the sea, he is sent to a training ship for merchant marine officers.