humiliated me.

"Look yonder, Bill!" cried one, addressing a comrade who was at some
distance. "Look at the wee chap as wants to be a sailor. My eyes! You
little tuppence worth o' ha'pence, you ain't big enough for a belayin'
pin! A see-a-lor! My eyes!"

"Does your mother know yer out?" inquired a second.

"No, that she don't," said a third, making reply for me; "nor his
father, neyther. I'll warrant, now, the chap has run away from home.
Have you gi'n 'em the slip, little sticklebat?"

"Look here, youngster!" said the mate. "Take my advice: go back to your
mother, give my compliments to the old lady, and tell her to take a turn
or two of her petticoat strings round you, belay them to the leg of a
chair, and keep you safe moored there for half a dozen years to come!"
This advice elicited a fresh peal of laughter. I felt humiliated at
this rough bantering, and knew not what reply to make. In my confusion
I stammered out the words--

"I have no mother to go home to!"

This reply appeared to produce a sudden effect upon the mirth of these
rude-looking men, and I could hear some of them give utterance to
certain expressions of sympathy.

Not so, however, the mate, who, without changing his tone of banter,
instantly rejoined--

"Well, then, go to your father, and tell _him_ to give you a good
flogging!"

"I have no father!"

"Poor little chap! it's a horphin arter all," said one of the tars, in a
kind tone.

"No father either, you say," continued the mate, who appeared to me an
unfeeling brute; "then go to your grandmother, or your uncle, or your
aunt, if you've got one; or go anywhere you like, but get about your
business from here, or I'll trice you up, and give you a round dozen on
the buttocks; be off now, I say!"

The brute seemed fully in earnest; and, deeply mortified by the threat,
I turned away in obedience to the command.

I had reached the gangway, and was about to step upon the plank, when I
observed a man coming in the opposite direction--from the shore. He was
dressed in the same style as a merchant or other citizen might have
been, with a black frock-coat and beaver hat; but there was something in
his look that told me he belonged to the sea. The complexion of his
face was of that weather bronze, and there was an expression in the eyes
which I knew to be characteristic of men who lead the life of the
mariner. Moreover, his trousers were of blue pilot-cloth, and that gave
him a sea