“Ow, Gaw’ blimme, let hup!  Hi never meant northin’!  A lie—­ Ow, yuss—­a lie!  She’s a proper lydy—­ Hi never ‘eard the hother—­ Gaw’ strike me blind!”

The man with the scar cast the fellow contemptuously away; and Cockney lost no time in putting the distance of the room between them.  The big man turned on the Swede, and his voice was sharp and commanding.

“Swede, does the Golden Bough sail to-morrow?”

“Ja, with da flood,” the Swede answered.

“Then I ship in her,” declared the man.  “I ship in the Golden Bough, Swede!”

It was the spark needed to fire my own resolution.  What another dared, I would dare.  I thumped the bar with my fist and sang out valorously, “I ship in her too, Swede!”

The Swede’s needles stopped flashing in and out of the gray yarn.  He regarded us, one after the other, with his baby stare.  Then he said to the big man, “Vat if your frients ship by her?”

“I have no friends,” was the curt answer.

The Swede leaned back on his stool, and his big belly quivered with his wheezy laughter.  “By Yimminy, Ay tank da Golden Bough haf vun lively voyage!” he exclaimed.

CHAPTER IV

We signed articles in the Swede’s house, almost within the hour.  A little man with a pimply, bulbous nose appeared in the house; he carried in his person the authority of Shipping Commissioner and in his hand the articles of the Golden Bough.  After the careless fashion of the day and port we signed on without further ado for a voyage to Hong Kong and beyond—­sitting at a table in the back room, and cementing the contract with a drink around.

The Shipping Commissioner made the usual pretense of reading the articles.  Then he squinted up at us.

“What’s yer John Henry’s?” says he.

My big shipmate mused a moment.  He stroked the scar on his forehead—­a habit he had when thinking.  He smiled.

“My name is Newman,” he made answer.  “It is a good name.”

He took the pen from the Shipping Commissioner’s hand and wrote the name in the proper place upon the articles.  “A.  Newman,” that is how he wrote it.  Not the first time he had clapped eyes upon ship’s articles, one could see with half an eye.  I wrote my own “John Shreve” below his name, with an outward flourish, but with a sinking sensation inwardly.

As soon as the ceremony was completed, A. Newman got to his feet, refused my pressing invitation to visit the bar, and went upstairs to his room.  Now, this seemed very peculiar to my sailor’s way of thinking; it seemed more peculiar than his choice of a name.  Here we were, shipmates, together committed to a high adventure, yet the man would not tarry by my side long enough to up-end a schooner to a fair passage.  I was to have other surprises before the day was out—­the mean-faced beggar,