"They'll turn you down if you have a German-silver watch in your pocket," commented Archer, as they descended another companionway; "or if you had the German measles. Didn't I tell you I'd get you through all right? You stick on the job, and they'll sign you up for transport service--then you'll see some fun." "I got to thank you," said Tom. "You notice _I'm_ not afraid of any of them?" Archer boasted; "I know how to handle them--I've got them all eating out of my hand--all but the captain. We're like a big family here; that's on account of the danger and there not being many passengers. I understand," he whispered significantly, "that there's some soldiers on board--a few of Pershing's men, I guess." The butcher's domain seemed to be a long way below decks. It had all the appurtenances of a regular store--chopping block, hangers, etc.--and the butcher himself was a genial soul, who took Tom in hand without any ceremony after the usual banter with the flippant young Archibald, who here took his departure, leaving Tom to his fate. "Come up to five-ninety-two on the promenade deck and you can bunk with me--I'll fix it with the deck steward," said Archer; and he was as good as his word, for later Tom joined him in an airy stateroom, opening on the main deck, where they enjoyed a sumptuousness of accommodation quite unusual in the ordinary state of things, but made possible by the very small passenger list. Indeed, Tom was soon to find that, while discipline was strict and uncompromising, as it always is at sea, there was a kind of spirit of fraternity among the ship's people, high and low, caused no doubt, as Archer had said, by their participation in a common peril and by the barnlike emptiness of the great vessel with freight piled on all the passenger decks and in the most inappropriate places. There was a suggestion of camping about all this makeshift which seemed to have gotten into the spirits of the ship's company and to have drawn them together. "Now I'll take you down," said the butcher, "and show you the store-rooms and refrigerators--you'll be running up and down these steps a good part of the time." They were no steps, but an iron ladder leading down from the butcher's apartment to a dark passage, where he turned on an electric light. "Now, these three doors," he said, "are to the three store-rooms--one, two, three." Tom followed him into one of the rooms. It was large and delightfully cool and immaculately clean. All around were rows of shelves with screen doors before them, and here were stored canned goods--thousands upon thousands of cans, Tom would have said. "You won't touch anything in here," his superior told him. "None of this will be used before the return trip--maybe not then. Come in here." Tom followed him through a passage from this room into another exactly like it. Along the passage were great ice box doors. "Cold storage," his superior observed. "You won't have to go in there much."