exclaimed, "So my old skipper has got a ship
again, and they say is going out as commodore to the coast of Africa."

"Dear me!" observed Mrs Rogers, "I am afraid that Captain Lascelles
will not like that; I should always have such a horror of that dreadful
station."

"Oh, mother, don't pray entertain such a notion as that," said Jack,
with no little emphasis. "There is in the first place plenty of work to
be done there, which in these piping times of peace is a great
consideration. Only think of the fun of capturing a slaver, and what is
more, of getting an independent command; or at least that is of a prize,
you know, and being away from one's ship for weeks together. And then
there is cruising in open boats, and exploring rivers, and fights with
pirates or slavers; perhaps a skirmish with the dependents of some
nigger potentate, and fifty other sorts of adventures, not to speak of
prize-money and all that sort of thing, you know. Oh, to my mind, the
coast of Africa is one of the best stations in the world, in spite of
what is said against it."

When Jack made this assertion, he had never been there. He talked on
till he had worked himself up to a fit of enthusiasm, and almost made
his family believe that the African station was not so bad a one after
all. The truth was that when Captain Lascelles paid off the _Racer_ he
promised Jack that should he get another ship soon he would apply for
him, and Jack therefore felt pretty certain that he should himself be
very soon on station, and he of course was anxious to prevent his
parents or sisters from feeling any undue anxiety on his account. He
could not sit down or turn his mind to anything all day till he
discovered a copy of the _Cruise of the Midge_, over the graphic pages
of which he was observed to be intently poring; and then he went and
routed out of the library one or two books descriptive of the west coast
of Africa. At dinner he could talk of nothing else but the Gold Coast,
and the Ivory Coast, and Congo, and other places in those regions.

"Why, Jack, we might suppose that you were contemplating going out there
from the way you talk about those places," observed one of his brothers,
who wanted to bring some other subject on the tapis.

"And so of course I am," exclaimed Jack. "I should like to stay at home
among you all; but as I have chosen a profession, and there is not
another like it, I hope to stick to it, and I intend always to look out
wh