n they are over and you are enjoying the credit of them.
When the captain's adventures stirred me most I looked forward with a
thrill of anticipation to my return home--modest from a justifiable
pride in my achievements, and so covered with renown by my deeds of
daring that I should play second fiddle in the family no more, and
that Rupert and Henrietta would outbid each other for my "particular"
friendship, and Baby Cecil dog my heels to hear the stories of my
adventures.

The thought of Baby Cecil was the heaviest pang I felt when I was
dissatisfied with the idea of running away from home. Baby Cecil was
the pet of the house. He had been born after my father's death, and
from the day he was born everybody conspired to make much of him.
Dandy, the Scotch terrier, would renounce a romping ramble with us to
keep watch over Baby Cecil when he was really a baby, and was only
carried for a dull airing in the nursemaid's arms. I can quite
understand Dandy's feelings; for if when one was just preparing for a
paperchase, or anything of that sort, Baby Cecil trotted up and,
flinging himself head first into one's arms, after his usual fashion,
cried, "Baby Cecil 'ants Charlie to tell him a long, long story--_so
much!_" it always ended in one's giving up the race or the scramble,
and devoting one's self as sedately as Dandy to his service. But I
consoled myself with the thought of how Baby Cecil would delight in
me, and what stories I should be able to tell him on my return.

The worst of running away now-a-days is that railways and telegrams
run faster. I was prepared for any emergency except that of being
found and brought home again.

Thinking of this brought to my mind one of Fred's tales of the
captain, about how he was pursued by bloodhounds and escaped by
getting into water. Water not only retains no scent, it keeps no
track. I think perhaps this is one reason why boys so often go to sea
when they run away, that no one may be able to follow them. It helped
my decision that we would go to sea when we ran away, Fred and I.
Besides, there was no other road to strange countries, and no other
way of seeing the sea people with the sou'-wester heads.

Fred did not seem to have any scruples about leaving his home, which
made me feel how much braver he must be than I. But his head was so
full of the plans he made for us, and the lists he drew up of natural
products of the earth in various places on which we could live without