oe," I said abruptly, "you're not fit to be here. Let's get out of
this, you belong in bed." He glanced at me impatiently.

"I'm fit enough," he muttered. "We'll stay right here and see this
show--unless you feel you want to quit----"

"Did I say I did? I'm ready enough----"

"All right, then wait a minute. They're about ready to go on board."

But as we stood and watched them, I still felt the chattering teeth by
my side, and a wave of pity and anger and of disgust swept over me. Joe
wouldn't last long at this kind of thing!

"What do you think of my friends?" he asked.

"I think you're throwing your life away!"

"Do you? How do you make it out?"

"Because they're an utterly hopeless crowd! Look at 'em--poor
devils--they look like a lot of Bowery bums!"

"Yes--they look like a lot of bums. And they feed all the fires at sea."

"Are they all like these?" I demanded.

"No better dressed," he answered. "A million lousy brothers of Christ."

"And you think you can build a new world _with them_?"

"No--I think they can do it themselves."

"Do you know what I think they'll do themselves? If they ever do win in
any strike and get a raise in wages--they'll simply blow it in on
drink!"

Joe looked at me a moment.

"They'll do so much more than drink," he said. "Come on," he added.
"They're going aboard."

They were forming in a long line now before the third-class gang-plank.
As they went up with their packs on their shoulders, a man at the top
gave each a shove and shouted out a number, which another official
checked off in a book. The latter I learned was the chief engineer. He
was a lean, powerful, ruddy-faced man with a plentiful store of
profanity which he poured out in a torrent:

"Come on! For Christ's sake! Do you want to freeze solid, you ---- human
bunch of stiffs?"

We came up the plank at the end of the line, and I showed him a letter
which I had procured admitting us to the engine rooms. He turned us over
promptly to one of his junior engineers, and we were soon climbing down
oily ladders through the intricate parts of the engines, all polished,
glistening, carefully cleaned. And then climbing down more ladders until
we were, as I was told, within ten feet of the keel of the ship, we came
into the stokers' quarters.

And here nothing at all was carefully cleaned. The place was foul, its
painted steel walls and floor and ceiling were heavily encrusted with
dirt. The low chamber was crowded w