craft."

"He is making out the papers now, I think, and ees in a bad temper,
too."

With this discouraging information, the two young men started for the
officers' cabin. As they entered the place they met a crew of typical
London longshoresmen coming out. Inside, a stocky purple-cheeked cockney
stood at a little desk and glowered at them with small red eyes.

"'Ow's this?" he growled sharply, and in some surprise. "You are not in
th' crew Hi picked hup."

"No, we applied at the office--"

"Hoffice, hoffice," snarled the man. "W'ot do they know about men,
settin' hup there with their legs cocked hup? W'ot is it ye want
anyway?"

Leonard silently offered a paper he had received from the British Towing
and Shipping Company. The mate wrinkled his half inch of knobbly brow as
he read the paper in a low undertone, after the manner of illiterate
men.

"And by the way, my man," began Caradoc in stiff condescension, "we
would like one of those cabins to ourselves."

The mate flung up a club-like head and threw back his blocky shoulders.
"_My man!_" he gasped. "Ye call me _my man_, ye little cigarette-suckin'
silk-hatted Johnny--orderin' private cabins! W'ot ye think this is--a