for their journey to the sea. From
mid-river came the shrill tooting of mosquito-like tugs, and the
churning sound of ferry-boats as they glided from shore to shore.

"Naw, Jack, my boy, it's too blarsted risky," said decisively one of the
four, a short, stocky man, with a pock-marked face and cockney accent.
"'Tain't no good arguin' an' chewin' the rag any longer, ye know. I
won't do it, an' that's all there's to it."

"Shorty's dead right," spoke up another of the men, as he drained his
glass. "We'd be caught, sure as yer name's Jack Armitage."

"Bah!" grunted the third man. "Wot's the good of kickin'? If it isn't
one thing, it's another--so wot's the use?"

The foregoing remarks were directed principally at the big,
straight-limbed fellow who sat at the table in sullen silence, his face
buried in his folded arms. He vouchsafed no answer to his comrades'
arguments. Lifting his head, he turned his bloodshot eyes on them, and,
as if to show his utter contempt for their opinion, he shrugged his
massive shoulders and, picking up the whiskey-bottle, refilled his
glass.

Apparently a few years younger than his associates, he was a clean-cut,
good-looking fellow with a smooth face, and regular features, and there
was something in his manner, an air of authority in the toss of his
head, which suggested that he might be fashioned of a different clay,
yet his grimy skin and oil-stained, coal-blackened clothes indicated
that his condition of life was the same. His eyes were red from
drinking and there were grim lines about his mouth that prompted his
companions to leave him to himself. They knew their customer.

In the stokers' forecastle Jack Armitage had made himself quickly known
as a man whom it was unwise to monkey with. Directly he joined the ship,
he gave them to understand that clearly. The cock of the boiler-room, a
bully who had heretofore run things to suit himself, rashly started an
argument with the newcomer, and before he knew what had hit him, he was
a fit subject for the hospital. Quick to admire physical strength, his
comrades respected Armitage after that episode, and they nicknamed him
Gentleman Jack, because his English was straighter than theirs and
because he appeared to have known better days. Sometimes they hailed him
as "Handsome," because of his shape, regular features and wavy hair. Of
his history they knew nothing, and seeing that he was moody and
uncommunicative, no one ventured to arouse his