"Well, just put your name to them now," continued the captain, pushing them across the table. "There's a chair and there's a pen."
"I beg to be excused, sir," replied Frank.
"Won't you do it?"
"I'd rather not, sir."
"Suit yourself," said the captain indifferently. "I am only advising you as a friend. You will lose your work if you don't. You can't collect a cent from the ship if you stay aboard of her ten years."
"I am sorry to differ with you, sir, but I know better than that."
"Be careful how you speak," said the captain, starting up in his chair. "I have stood a good deal from you, and you don't want to say too much. You are not talking to Mr. Gale now."
"You haven't stood more than I have, sir," returned Frank. "It is high time I should speak plainly, as I never had the chance before and may never have it again. I know that when seamen are shipped on American whaling vessels without the rate of their pay being specified, they are entitled on their discharge in a foreign port, to the sum of twenty dollars a month as extra wages."
"How do you happen to know so much about law, Nelson?" asked the first mate.
"The way I happen to know so much about these matters is because I read up, expecting at one time to go as consul's clerk to some port in the Mediterranean."