red; and this gash over the eye, his dishevelled hair, the disorder of
his clothes, gave him the aspect of a man worsted in a fight with fists.

"Got to pick up the dollars." He appealed to Mr. Rout, smiling pitifully
at random.

"What's that?" asked Mr. Rout, wildly. "Pick up . . . ? I don't care.
. . ." Then, quivering in every muscle, but with an exaggeration of
paternal tone, "Go away now, for God's sake. You deck people'll drive
me silly. There's that second mate been going for the old man. Don't you
know? You fellows are going wrong for want of something to do. . . ."

At these words Jukes discovered in himself the beginnings of anger. Want
of something to do--indeed. . . . Full of hot scorn against the
chief, he turned to go the way he had come. In the stokehold the plump
donkeyman toiled with his shovel mutely, as if his tongue had been cut
out; but the second was carrying on like a noisy, undaunted maniac, who
had preserved his skill in the art of stoking under a marine boiler.

"Hallo, you wandering officer! Hey! Can't you get some of your
slush-slingers to wind up a few of them ashes? I am getting choked with
them here. Curse it! Hallo! Hey! Remember the articles: Sailors and
firemen to assist each other. Hey! D'ye hear?"

Jukes was climbing out frantically, and the other, lifting up his face
after him, howled, "Can't you speak? What are you poking about here for?
What's your game, anyhow?"

A frenzy possessed Jukes. By the time he was back amongst the men in the
darkness of the alleyway, he felt ready to wring all their necks at the