not doctor enough to put you right
again?"

"Oh, I don't mean really ill, uncle. I mean sea-sick; and it would seem
so stupid."

"Horribly; yes. You'd better be! Pooh! Rubbish! Nonsense! You talk
like a great Molly. Now, no nonsense, Rodney. Speak out frankly and
candidly. You mean that now it has come to the point you think it too
serious, and you want to shirk?"

"I don't, uncle; I don't, indeed, and I do wish you wouldn't call me
Rodney!" cried the boy earnestly.

"I shall, sir, _as long as I live, if you play me false now_."

"Oh, uncle, what a shame!" cried the boy passionately. "Play you false!
Who wants to play you false? I only wanted to tell you frankly that I
felt a bit afraid of not being quite equal to the sea. I want to go,
and I mean to go, and you oughtn't to jump upon me like this, and call
me Rodney."

The boy stood before the doctor, flushed and excited, as he continued--

"You talk to me, uncle, as if you thought that I was a regular coward
and afraid of the sea."

"Then you shouldn't make me, sir. Who was it said afraid? Why, you
have been out with me for days together, knocking about, in pretty good
rough weather too."

"Yes, uncle, but that was all within sight of land."

"What's that got to do with it? It's often much rougher close in shore,
especially on a rocky coast, than it is out on the main."

"I wish I hadn't spoken," cried Rodd passionately.

"So do I, sir."

"I couldn't help thinking I might turn very sick for days, and get
laughed at by the crew and called a swab."

"Oh," said Uncle Paul, laughing, "you talked as if you were afraid of
the sea, and all the time, you conceited young puppy, you mean that you
are afraid of the men."

"Well, yes, uncle, I suppose that that really is it."

"Humph! Then why didn't you say so, and not talk as if you, the first
of my crew that I reckoned upon, were going to mutiny and give it all
up?"

"Give it up, uncle?" cried the boy. "Why, you know that I am longing to
go."

"Ah, well, that sounds more like it, Pickle," said Uncle Paul, looking
sideways at the boy through his half-closed eyes. "Then I suppose it is
all a false alarm."

"Of course it is, uncle," cried Rodd.

"Well, we may as well make sure, you know, because once we are started
it won't be long before we are out of sight of land, and there'll be no
turning back."

"Well, I don't want to turn back, uncle."

"Then you shouldn't have talked as if