In the beginning of the thrilling novel The Sea-Wolf by Jack London, a man named Humphrey van Weyden is aboard a ferry out of San Francisco that sinks after colliding with another vessel in the midst of fog. After rescuing van Weyden, Captain Wolf Larsen of the schooner called the Ghost refuses to set him on land, and instead forces him to become a member of his crew. To humiliate him and bring him into subjection, Larsen starts van Weyden out in the lowest position on the ship: that of cabin-boy under the cook's oversight. Calling van Weyden "Hump," which is a nickname for Humphrey, is a part of his humiliation. Larsen demands that van Weyden call him "Sir," and the cook insists that van Weyden call him Mr. Mugridge. As a result, every time that van Weyden is addressed as Hump, he is reminded of his lower status.

At the beginning of chapter 4 in "The Sea-Wolf" by Jack London, the narrator is working in the galley as a cabin-boy.  The cook has sent him above with bread and tea for the captains dinner.  As he is walking across the deck someone yells "look-out"  he doesn't know what he is supposed to look out for, but Wolf Larsen "shouted from the poop- 'Grab hold of something you-you hump!'"

This of course is a slang reference to the narrator's Christian name Humphrey and it also is thematically an indication of how the men on the ship viewed Humphrey.  The cook comes back up on deck after the huge wave has knocked Humphrey down and tells him that he is "good for nothing."

"Van Weyden is an idealist for whom "life had always seemed a peculiarly sacred thing," but he discovers that on the Ghost "it counted for nothing." In contrast, Larsen is a complete materialist who sees life as a "yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves."