"I gotcha . . . sir. Kid Twist'll do me . . . sir."

"Kid'll do!"

"Kid . . . sir."

And the three laughed their silent, mirthless laugh. By this time
Mr. Pike was beside himself with a rage that could find no excuse for
action.

"Now I'm going to tell you something, the bunch of you, for the good
of your health." The mate's voice grated with the rage he was
suppressing. "I know your kind. You're dirt. D'ye get THAT?
You're dirt. And on this ship you'll be treated as dirt. You'll do
your work like men, or I'll know the reason why. The first time one
of you bats an eye, or even looks like batting an eye, he gets his.
D'ye get that? Now get out. Get along for'ard to the windlass."

Mr. Pike turned on his heel, and I swung alongside of him as he moved
aft.

"What do you make of them?" I queried.

"The limit," he grunted. "I know their kidney. They've done time,
the three of them. They're just plain sweepings of hell--"

Here his speech was broken off by the spectacle that greeted him on
Number Two hatch. Sprawled out on the hatch were five or six men,
among them Larry, the tatterdemalion who had called him "old stiff"