auntered slowly along the beach in
front of his hut, with his hands deep in the pockets of his pilot-coat.

"Thankee, I amongst the middlings. How's yerself?"

"I like myself," said Rodgers; "how's old Jeph?"

"Rather or'nary; but I dessay he'll come all square after a day or two
in dock," answered the Captain; "I left him shored up in bed with
bolsters."

"So Tommy's slipped his cable, I'm told?" said Rodgers interrogatively.

"Ay, he's off, an' no mistake. I thought he was jokin', for I heard him
talk o' goin' after Bax some time past, but nothin' more come of it till
yesterday, when he comes to me and bids me good day, and then off like a
galley after a French smuggler. It's o' no use tryin' to catch him.
That boy'll make his way and have his will somehow, whether we let him
or no. Ay, ay," said Bluenose, lighting his pipe with a heavy sigh,
"Tommy Bogey's gone for good."

That was the last that was heard of poor Tommy for many a long day on
the beach of Deal. But as there is no good reason why the readers
should be kept in the dark regarding his movements, we shall follow him
on the rugged path he had selected, and leave the men of Deal to wonder
for a time, and talk, and then forget him.

Having waited as long as his patience could hold out, and no letter
having come from Bax, Tommy at last prepared to carry out his plan. By
dint of hard labour among the boats at any odd jobs that people would
give him, and running messages, and making himself generally useful to
the numerous strangers who visited that fine and interesting part of the
coast, he had scraped together a few pounds. By persevering study at
nights he had acquired a fair knowledge of figures and a smattering of
navigation. Thus equipped in mind and purse he went off to seek his
fortune.

His intention was in the first place to go to London and visit the
"Three Jolly Tars," where, he doubted not, every possible and
conceivable sort of information in regard to shipping could be obtained.

There chanced at the time to be a certain small collier lying in the
downs, awaiting a fair wind to carry her into the port of London. This
collier (a schooner) was named the "Butterfly," perhaps because the
owner had a hazy idea that there was some resemblance between an insect
flitting about from flower to flower and a vessel sailing from port to
port! Black as a chimney from keelson to truck, she was as like to a
butterfly as a lady's hand is to a m