own here.

"Josh Barney was born somewhere along 1759 in Baltimore," the old man
began slowly, as if determined to give a regular biography of the
captain. "His folks let him go to school till he was ten years old,
an' then he began to shift for himself by goin' into a store; but,
bless you, he never was made for that kind of work, an' before two
years passed he found it out. Went over to Baltimore one day on a
visit, an' wound up by shippin' on a pilot-boat; but even that wasn't
what he hankered for, an' finally his father shipped him as apprentice
to Captain Tom Drisdale, on a brig for a voyage to Ireland."

"I was in hopes your yarn had somethin' about his runnin' away to go
to sea," Jerry said in a tone of disappointment.

"You'll find these 'ere runaway sailors don't 'mount to very much,
except in story books, an', besides, Josh Barney wasn't that kind of a
chap. Drisdale made the passage, an' then went up to Liverpool, where
he got a chance to sell the brig. Barney worked his way home before
the mast on a full-rigged ship--I don't jest remember her name. When
he struck Baltimore again it was to find that the old man Barney had
been killed accidentally by the youngest boy of the family, who was
foolin' with a loaded pistol, an' Joshua had to shift for himself,
seein's his father didn't have none too much money, an' a big family.
The lad shipped for Cadiz as ordinary seaman; made the voyage all
right; had a little cash to leave with his mother, an' then signed as
an A1 on a brig bound for Italy."

"It don't make very much difference to us how many voyages he made,"
Jerry interrupted. "What we want to know is the kind of a man he is."

"If you can put a stopper on your jaw a bit, you'll soon find out! The
mate of the brig was sent into the forecastle, not bein' up to his
work, an' Josh Barney took his place. Then the captain took sick, an'
lo an' behold, before the lad had turned sixteen years old, he was in
command of the brig. Owin' to the freights that offered, he sailed for
Alicant, an' made port just as the Spaniards were fittin' out an
expedition against Algiers. The brig was chartered as transport, an'
he earned big money for the owners, gettin' back to the mouth of the
Chesapeake in '76, when the British sloop of war King Fisher hove him
to an' took all his papers an' weapons; but let him keep on to
Baltimore, where the brig was laid up. Then Barney had more money, an'
considerable of it, for his mother.