Malone was hastily pulling his crew together in the mess room on the
middle pontoon. He came by waving his short heavy arms in the direction
of the long eating room.

"Get along aft; you're to sign the ship's papers!" he bawled
monotonously. "Get along!"

Most of the men walked faster when the mate flung his arms at them.
Leonard felt the impulse to step livelier but held himself to Caradoc's
deliberate stride.

In the mess room the boys found a compact, black-haired, serious-faced
young man of unknown nationality reading the ship's articles in an
expressionless tone. Nobody listened, although various penalties were
prescribed for desertion, quitting ship without leave, disobedience of
orders, each with its particular fine or punishment. When the reader
finished, the men walked around one by one and signed the register.
Then a copy of the articles was pointed out on the side of the mess
room, and again no one observed.

The performance was hardly completed when the gong rang for supper.
There were not more than a dozen men at mess. Most were of stolid
English navvy type, dirty uncouth men whose gross irregular features
told of low birth and evil life. The foreign element comprised an
Irishman named Mike Hogan and the Frenchman whom the boys had met when
they first came aboard. The crowd called him Dashalong. Upon inquiry,
Leonard found it to be Deschaillon. The young man who read the articles
was named Farnol Greer. However, he proved a silent, taciturn youth, who
seemed to converse with no one and to have no friends.