wn, you may as well give up, as you might sooner soft-sawder
a trenail into a two-inch plank as get over him and shirk your duty!
The old man, easy-going when you take him right, is as stiff as a
porkypine when you runs foul of his hawse; so, you'd better not try on
any o' them pranks o' yours you told me you and your messmate played off
on your old schoolmaster, for Cap'en Billings has cut his eye teeth, my
hearty."

"Why, I wouldn't dream of such a thing," I exclaimed, indignantly, "what
Tom and I did to Dr Hellyer was quite different, and served him right
for his cruelty."

"Aye, aye, that may be accordin' to your notion," said Jorrocks,
sententiously; "but that schoolmaster were the skipper of his own ship,
the same as Cap'en Billings is here aboard this here craft, and it ain't
right to trifle with them as is set in authority over us!"

I can't tell what I might have replied to this appropriate little sermon
that Jorrocks delivered about the mischievous and dangerous trick that
Tom and I conspired together to commit, and which I have often
subsequently reflected might have led to the most disastrous
consequences, and perhaps injured the Doctor for life; but, at that
moment, Captain Billings, seeing my old friend and I chatting together,
came over to leeward, where we were standing.

"Hullo, boatswain!" he shouted out, "making friends with the youngster,
eh?"

"Why, bless you, Cap'en Billings," answered Jorrocks, touching his cap,
"he and I are old shipmates."

"Indeed! I had no idea of his having been at sea before," said the
skipper, apparently very much astonished at this news.

"Oh, aye, sir, he has," returned my old friend, glad to be able to put
in a good word for me, as he thought, after the little lecture he had
just given me. "He was on board a coal brig with me two years ago, a
coasting craft that plied up along shore to Noocastle and back; and
you'll find him no green hand, Cap', but a smart able chap, one that'll
get out to the weather earing when there's a call to reef topsails
sooner than many a full-grown seaman, for he knows his way up the
rigging."

"I'm very glad to hear that," said the skipper, turning to me, with an
affable smile that lighted up his twinkling blue eyes. "When Sam
Pengelly told me you were a capable lad, of course, I naturally took his
opinion to proceed more from personal bias than practical comment on
your seamanship; but, now that I learn from Jorrocks here, on mor