sleepy sailor. "What's matter?"

"We're at Portsmouth."

"Right you are, mate," cried the man, jumping up and fumbling in his
pocket for his pass, just as the ticket collector came up. Then, on
they went a short distance; the train stopped again, and shivering with
excitement, and fear, lest the "Flash" should have sailed, the Skipper
alighted with his new friend, who shouldered his kit, and they walked
off rapidly to the stairs.

Bob's eyes were wandering outward, in search of his father's vessel,
which he had visited three times, but it was not lying where he saw it
last, and his heart was sinking again, when his companion said sharply:

"There she lies; blue Peter up--just see it. Look at 'em hysting her
lights. This way."

The sailor was wonderfully quick and business-like, now, and all fell
out, as he had said, about the boatmen, one of them grumbling; but he
did not refuse the job, and in ten minutes they were getting very close
to the soft grey side of the "Flash," with the boy trembling still, for
fear he should see it begin to glide away, before he could reach the
side.

[Illustration: "In ten minutes they were getting close to the
'Flash.'"]

But there she still swung to the buoy as they came up, and the Marine
sentry at the gangway challenged.

"Good-bye," said the Skipper, handing his threepenny piece to his
travelling companion, "and I wish you a pleasant voyage."

The boat floated away into the darkness, and the Skipper ran up the
steps, to where the sentry stood grinning, and puzzled as to whether
he should call the officer of the watch to the familiar young visitor.

"Where's my father?" said the boy; "is he in his cabin?"

"Shore, at the Port Admiral's, sir," said the sentry.

Here was a disappointment; but it was something to have got on board in
time, and the Skipper began to walk aft, while the Marine, taking it as
a matter of course that the Captain's son should have come on board,
resumed his watch.

There were not many men on deck, and they were all too busy to pay any
heed to the boy, as he looked about, in vain, for the familiar figure,
the coxswain. At last, he stopped a man carrying a lanthorn.

"Can you tell me where Jack Robinson is, please?"

"Who?" said the sailor, staring. "Ain't nobody o' that name here."

"I mean Tom Jeffs," said the Skipper hurriedly.

"Oh, him! Ashore with the gig, waiting to bring the skipper aboard."

Bob looked about again and finding himself