t of it, Tom," he replied, as he and I bent our backs and made
the boat spin along towards the old flagship, fetching the gangway at
the foot of the accommodation ladder on the starboard side in half a
dozen strokes. "The ship's corporal told me it'd last all day. It's
only them lawyer chaps wanting to get ashore to their lunch, that's all.
Those landsharks be as hungry arter their vittles as they is for their
fees, Tom; they be rare hands, them lawyers, for keeping their weather
eyes open, and is all on the look-out for whatsomedever they can pick
up. They be all fur grabbin' an' grabbin', that they be, or I'm a
Dutchman!"

"Really, father?" I said innocently, as I stood up in the bows of the
wherry and hung on by a boathook to one of the ringbolts in the side of
the old three-decker that towered up above our heads, waiting to help in
a couple of gentlemen who came hurrying down the accommodation ladder to
take passage with us. "Why, I thought you and mother wanted me to go
into a lawyer's office and become one of those very same sort of chaps!"

"I'd rayther see you an honest sailor, like your father an' grandfather
afore you," he answered, with some heat, unthinkingly; and then,
catching my eye, he grinned, recognising how seriously he had committed
himself by this rash utterance after his previous advice respecting the
unsatisfactory character of the vocation he now extolled, and he
muttered under his breath while lending his arm to assist the gentlemen
to pass astern on their jumping into the boat. "Ship my rullocks, you
young rascal! Don't you sit there grinning and winking at me, like a
Cheshire cat eatin' green cheese, thinkin' no doubt you've got to
win'ard of me; though, I'm blest, sonny, if I didn't nearly slip my
painter then!"

The rudder of the wherry being shipped, one of the gentlemen took the
yoke lines as he sat down in the sternsheets facing father, handling
them in a manner that showed he was no novice.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed presently, looking steadily at father, as he
steered us aslant the tide so as not to check the way of the boat, while
making straight for the pontoon across the stream, which was now running
out, like a regular good coxswain. "Aren't you Tom Bowling?"

"Aye, aye, sir, that's my rating," said father, looking at him in his
turn. "But I can't say as how I can place your honour;--though, ship my
rullocks, if it ain't young Mister Mordaunt; `Gentleman Jack' we used to
c