[PHIL SIGNED THE ARTICLE WITHOUT READING IT]
“You understand that this is a fishing v’y’ge?” demanded Captain Duff, at the conclusion of this ceremony.
“I understand very little about it, sir,” responded Phil. “I only understand that for me it will end at Sitka, and I am willing to undertake whatever may be necessary in order to reach that place.”
“Humph!” growled Captain Duff. Then in a voice that sounded like the roar of a bull he bellowed out: “On deck there! Lively, now, and have a boat alongside!”
So promptly was he obeyed that by the time the occupants of the cabin regained the deck a light whale-boat, sharp-pointed at both ends, and containing three oarsmen, of whom Serge was one, awaited them.
Motioning Phil to enter this craft, Captain Duff ponderously followed, and standing in the stern, with one brawny hand grasping a long steering oar, he ordered the crew to give way.
A few sturdy strokes shot the boat across to the landing, where the captain ordered two of the men to await his return, and gave the lads to understand that they were to follow him.
He led them to a sailors’ slop-shop, where in a very few minutes he had provided the latest addition to his crew with a heavy suit of duffle cloth, a pea-jacket, two flannel shirts, a pair of rubber hip-boots, another pair of stout cow-hide, a woollen toque, or sailor’s nightcap, a long oil-skin coat, and a hat of similar material.
“There!” growled Captain Duff, viewing these things as they lay piled on the counter. “I call that an outfit such as mighty few shipmasters would pervide for a landlubber. But when I undertakes to do a thing, I does it. D’ye hear?”