e captain said, "but you do not; and as for this
cub--come here, you great, strong, impudent young ruffian!" he added;
and as his son rose from his chair he took him by the shoulders, gave
him a hearty shake, followed it up with a back-handed blow in the chest,
and ended by gripping his right hand in a firm, manly clasp, his voice
turning slightly husky as he continued:

"Mark, my lad, Heaven knows how often, when I'm far away at sea, I feel
as if I'd give anything for a sight of your mother's face, ay, and a
good look at yours, you ugly young imitation! How dare you try and grow
up like me!"

Mrs Strong smiled.

"But it won't do, my lad. I'm earning the pennies in my ship, and you
must go on with your studies, take care of your mother, and when I come
back after my next voyage we'll have a talk about what you're to be.
Let's see; how old are you?"

"Sixteen, father."

"Sixteen, and discontented! Why, Mark, do you know that you possess
what hundreds of thousands of men most envy?"

"I do, father?"

"To be sure, sir; health, strength, all your faculties, and all the
world before you."

"But I never see any of the world like you do," said Mark dolefully.

"Ha--ha--ha--ha!"

It was a broad, honest, hearty laugh, such as a sturdy Englishman who is
in the habit of using his lungs indulges in; and as Mark Strong's brow
wrinkled, and he felt irritated at being laughed at, his father thrust
him back into his chair.

"I'm not laughing at you, my boy," he said; "but at your notion--the
common one, that a sailor who goes all round the world is always seeing
wonderful sights."

"Well, my dear," said Mrs Strong, taking her son's part, "you know you
have seen strange things."

As she spoke her eyes ran over the decorations of their
handsomely-furnished room in the old-fashioned house in old-fashioned
Hackney, where there were traces of the captain's wanderings in the
shape of stuffed birds of gorgeous plumage, shells of iridescent tints,
masses of well-bleached corals, spears and carven clubs from New
Zealand, feather ornaments from Polynesia, boomerangs and nulla-nullas
from Australia, ostrich eggs from the Cape, ivory carvings from China, a
hideous suit of black iron armour from Japan, and carpets and rugs from
India and Persia to make snug the floor.

"Strange things, wife! Well, of course I have a few. A man can't be at
sea thirty years without seeing something; but, generally speaking, a
sailor's life is