which had been tiding
it down Limehouse Reach under her topsails, there being but little wind,
and that contrary; but now that she had arrived to Greenwich Reach she
had braced up, with her head the right way. My box was handed up the
side, and I made my appearance on the deck soon afterwards, with my
telescope in my hand.

"Are you the lad for whom the pilot sent the boat?" inquired a man, whom
I afterwards found to be the second mate.

"Yes," replied I.

"Well, there he is abaft, in a P-jacket," said he, walking to the
gangway, and directing the men to drop the boat astern.

I looked aft, and perceived my future master talking with the captain of
the vessel. Philip Bramble was a spare man, about five feet seven
inches high, he had on his head a low-crowned tarpaulin hat, a short
P-jacket (so called from the abbreviation of _pilot's_ jacket) reached
down to just above his knees. His features were regular, and, indeed,
although weatherbeaten, they might be termed handsome. His nose was
perfectly straight, his lips thin, his eyes grey and very keen; he had
little or no whiskers, and, from his appearance and the intermixture of
grey with his brown hair, I supposed him to be about fifty years of age.
In one hand he held a short clay pipe, into which he was inserting the
forefinger of the other, as he talked with the captain. At the time
that he was pointed out to me by the second mate he was looking up
aloft; I had, therefore, time to make the above observations before he
cast his eyes down and perceived me, when I immediately went aft to him.

"I suppose you are Tom Saunders?" said he, surveying me from head to
foot.

I replied in the affirmative.

"Well, Anderson has given you a good character, mind you don't lose it.
D'ye think you'll like to be a pilot?"

"Yes," replied I.

"Have you sharp eyes, a good memory, and plenty of nerve?"

"I believe I've got the two first, I don't know about the other."

"I suppose not, it hasn't been tried yet. How far can you see through a
fog?"

"According how thick it is."

"I see you've a glass there: tell me what you make of that vessel just
opening from Blackwall Reach."

"What, that ship?"

"Oh, you can make it out to be a ship, can you, with the naked eye?
Well, then, you have good eyes."

I plied my glass upon the vessel, and, after a time, not having
forgotten the lessons so repeatedly given me by Spicer, I said, "She has
no colours up, but she's an Em