e subordinate officer!

Jorrocks, however, took my patronage in good part, although I could
detect a faint cock of his eye, denoting sly amusement at my ridiculous
assumption of superiority. This he now proceeded to "take down a peg"
in his roundabout way.

"Why, bless you, Master Leigh, I sailed as able seaman in a China
clipper afore you were born, and when I were that high!" he replied,
laughing, putting his hand about a foot above the deck to illustrate his
approximate stature at the period referred to, and representing himself
to be at that time certainly a very diminutive son of Neptune.

"You must have been very young, then," said I, a little bit nettled at
his remark--thinking it a slur on my nautical experience, so bran-new as
that was!

But Jorrocks went on as coolly as if I had not cast a doubt on the
veracity of his statement concerning his early commencement of sailor
life.

"Aye, aye," he answered, quite collectedly, "I grant I were young, but
then you must rec'lect, my lad, I got the flavour o' the sea early in a
lighthouse tower, where I was born and brought up, my father having the
lantern to mind; and, since then, I've v'y'ged a'most to every part you
could mention, and shipped in a'most every kind of craft, from an East
Indyman down to a Yarmouth hoy. Bless you! I only took to the coasting
line two or three years ago, when you and I first ran foul of each
other; and the reason for my doing that was in cons'quence of my getting
spliced, and the missus wanting me to take a 'longshore berth.
Howsomedevers, I couldn't stand it long, being once used to a decent
fo'c's'le in a proper sort of vessel v'y'ging o'er the seas in true
shipshape fashion; and so, I parted company with the brig and came
aboard the _Esmeralda_ eighteen months ago come next July--a long spell
for a sailor to stick to one ship without changing, but then Cap'en
Billings 's a good sort, and he made me boatswain o' the craft last
v'y'ge but one, so I hopes to remain with him longer still."

"You like him, then?" I said, tentatively, looking him straight in the
face.

"Oh, aye--first-class," replied Jorrocks to my implied question, with
much seriousness, "He's not only a good skipper--as good as they make
'em, treating the hands as if they were men, and not dogs--but he's a
prime seaman, and knows what's what in a gale, better nor most I've ever
sailed with. Howsomedevers, he'll stand no nonsense; and when he puts
his foot do