d sitting down on a
locker. "Have you read over the rule carefully?"

"Yes, sir, I have, a dozen times at least, but it won't come right,"
answered the boy, with wrinkles enough on his young brow to indicate the
very depths of puzzlement.

"Fetch the book, Will, and let's examine it."

The book was brought, and at his teacher's request the boy read:--

"Add the interest to the principal, and then multiply by--"

"Multiply?" said Charlie, interrupting. "Look!"

He pointed to the sum on the slate, and repeated "multiply."

"Oh!" exclaimed the cabin-boy, with a gasp of relief and wide-open eyes,
"I've _divided_!"

"That's so, Will, and there's a considerable difference between division
and multiplication, as you'll find all through life," remarked the
teacher, with a peculiar lift of his eyebrows, as he handed back the
slate and went on his way.

More than once in his progress "for'ard" he was arrested by men who
wished hint to give advice, or clear up difficulties in reference to
subjects which his encouragement or example had induced them to take up,
and to these claims on his attention or assistance he accorded such a
ready and cheerful response that his pupils felt it to be a positive
pleasure to appeal to him, though they each professed to regret giving
him "trouble." The boatswain, who was an amiable though gruff man in
his way, expressed pretty well the feelings of the ship's company
towards our hero when he said: "I tell you, mates, I'd sooner be rubbed
up the wrong way, an' kicked down the fore hatch by Mr Brooke, than I'd
be smoothed or buttered by anybody else."

At last the fo'c'sl was reached, and there our surgeon found his
patient, Dick Darvall, awaiting him. The stout seaman's leg had been
severely bruised by a block which had fallen from aloft and struck it
during one of the recent gales.

"A good deal better to-day," said Charlie. "Does it pain you much?"

"Not nearly as much as it did yesterday, sir. It's my opinion that I'll
be all right in a day or two. Seems to me outrageous to make so much
ado about it."

"If we didn't take care of it, my man, it might cost you your limb, and
we can't afford to bury such a well-made member before its time! You
must give it perfect rest for a day or two. I'll speak to the captain
about it."

"I'd rather you didn't, sir," objected the seaman. "I feel able enough
to go about, and my mates'll think I'm shirkin' dooty."

"There's not a man a-b