, and in the next, I wanted you to stick to your books as long as
you could. I grant there are many officers even in His Majesty's service
who are as rough as if they had come in through the hawse-hole, but it
tells against them. However, as you are past fifteen, I think now that you
will do; and as you have been working steadily with me for the past four
years, you have got a lot into your head that will give you an advantage
over boys sent to sea two years younger.

"You are well up in navigation, and can take an observation as well as any
old sailor, either by sun, moon, or stars. You can steer a boat in heavy
weather, and knot and splice; you know the sails and ropes, and can go
aloft as quickly as a monkey, and do anything that your strength permits.
There have been plenty of opportunities for teaching you all this on short
coasting voyages and on board ships driven in here by stress of weather. I
suppose, Steve, however much we may talk of other professions, it comes to
the sea at last. I know that you have always wanted it, but if I could
have seen any opening for you on land I would rather that you had taken to
it than have gone afloat. You see what it has done for me, lad. It is a
poor trade, though as long as it's war-time there is excitement enough to
make up for the shortness of the pay. However, as I have told you many a
time, there is no chance whatever of my getting you a midshipman's berth.

"I have not the slightest influence at the admiralty, and the navy has
been so reduced since the war ended that they must have fifty applications
for every vacancy; besides, now that there is no fighting to be done, I
don't know that the merchant service isn't the best, for it is dull work
indeed being years on a station when there is no chance of a brush with an
enemy or the capture of a prize. In the merchant service you can have at
least a change, and a smart young fellow who knows his business and has
gentlemanly manners, has much better chances of coming to the front than
he would have in the royal navy. So I think the time has come when I must
bring myself to make a move in the matter."

"Thank you, father; I know very well that in studying with you I have
learned a lot more than I should have done if I had gone to sea two years
ago; but I do want to be working and earning something, instead of being
an expense to you, and, as you know, I would prefer the sea to anything
else."

"It is Hobson's choice, lad; i