So we, who foregathered yesterday afternoon in the shipping office, are lashed together for another four months. A motley group, my friend. Outside I stood, note-book in hand, trying to find a spare fireman who wanted a job. A mob of touts, sharks, and pimps crowded round me, hustling each other, and then turning away from my call, "Any firemen here?" In despair I go over to the "Federation Office," where all seamen are registered in the books of life insurance, where they pay their premiums, and await possible engineers. I consult with the grave, elderly man in the office, and he asks for firemen in the bare, cold waiting-room. One man comes up, a pale, nervous chap, clean-shaven and quiet. I take his "Continuous Discharge" book, flick it open at the last entry--trawling! The last foreign-going voyage is dated 1902, "S. Africa," "Voyage not completed." I hand it back. "Won't do," I remark shortly, and look round for others. The man looks at the grave, elderly person, who takes the book. "Give him a chance," says the latter, in his low, official voice. "Look--S. Africa. The man's been serving his country. Give him a chance." "I would if he'd promise not to get enteric when we reach port," I say. "Never 'ad it yet, sir," says the man, and I take his book. "_Benvenuto_. Hurry up. She's signing on now." He runs across the road, and I follow. When I reach the shipping office they are waiting for me. Behind the counter and seated beside the clerk is the Captain, writing our "advance notes." The clerk asks if all are present; we shuffle up closer, and he begins to read the articles to which we XXXX subscribe--signing our death-warrants, we call it. No one listens to him--he himself is paring his nails, or arranging some other papers as he intones the sentences which are more familiar to him and to us than the Lord's Prayer to a clergyman. Then, when he has finished, each one comes up for catechism--carpenter, sailors, donkeyman, fireman, all in due order. Then the officers. "Donkeyman!" calls the clerk. A huge, muscular figure with a red handkerchief round his bull throat ceases arguing with a fireman, plunges forward, and seizes the pen. He is my friend of the last voyage, the mighty Norseman. "What is your name?" "Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen." "Where were you born?" "Stockholm." "How old are you?" "Thirty-two." "Where do you live?" "Ryder Street, Swansea." "Any advance?" "Yes." And so on with each of us. "Don't forget," says the clerk from the depths of a three-and-a-half-inch collar, "to be on the ship at nine o'clock to-morrow morning." And we troop out to make room for another crew, meet yet another coming to be paid off at the other counter, wish we were they, and eventually reach the ship.