decline allowing me to mount unless he held me up. "It
will be time when the little chap has had some practice to let him go
along by himself," he observed, looking round at our shipmates. "Now,
you don't know what would become of him, for Nanny is more than likely
to trot off on the quarter-deck and make herself disagreeable there, and
maybe pitch Master Benjy down the main hatchway. No, no, I will stand
by and hold him on till he is a bit older."

This resolution was certainly very prudent; but I very soon began to
complain of it, and to assert, by signs rather than by words, that I was
well able to take care of myself, and steer the goat as Quacko had done.

"And where is Quacko, Master Ben?" asked Toby, who understood me better
than anyone else. "He thought he could take care of himself, but he
could not do so, you see, nor can any of us, and that's my opinion. If
there was not one better able to take care of us than we are of
ourselves, we poor sea-going chaps would be in a bad way."

In spite, however, of Toby Kiddle, my other friends managed occasionally
to let me have my own way; and with great pride they looked on while I,
with the end of a mop stick in my hand, went galloping about the deck,
belabouring the goat's hinder quarters, very much after the fashion of
an Irishman riding a donkey at a race. The Sergeant of Marines, Julian
Killock was his name, on seeing the use I made of my weapon, took it
into his head to teach me the broadsword exercise, which I very soon
learnt. The Jollies now began to contemplate appropriating me to
themselves, and thus, as it may be supposed, made the Blue-jackets
somewhat jealous.

"No, no, Tom Sawyer," I remember hearing one of the latter observe, "you
shall not have little Ben to turn into a horse-marine on no account. He
is our'n and cut out for a blue-jacket, and a blue-jacket he will be
till the end of his days."

Still the Jollies were in no way disposed to give up their share of me,
to which they considered they had a right. I was very nearly the cause
of a serious dispute between the two Services. A compromise was at
length entered into by the suggestion of my father, who agreed that the
Jollies might teach me the sword and platoon exercise, while the
Blue-jackets might impart as much nautical knowledge as I was capable of
taking in.

But I was speaking of the goat. I was especially fond of mounting
Nanny's back, though she must have found me considera