Bridge.

Thence, I took a cab, according to father's directions, to the offices
of the brokers in Leadenhall Street, handing them a letter which he had
given me to establish my identity.

In return, Messrs. Splice and Mainbrace, as represented by the junior
partner of the firm, similarly handed me over to the tender mercies of
one of the younger clerks of the establishment, by whom I was escorted
through a lot of narrow lanes and dirty streets, down Wapping way to the
docks; the young clerk ultimately, anxious not to miss his dinner,
stopping in front of a large ship.

"There you are, walk up that gangway," he said; and thereupon instantly
bolted off!

So, seeing nothing better to be done, I marched up the broad plank he
pointed out, somewhat nervously as there was nothing to hold on to, and
I should have fallen into the deep water of the dock had my foot
slipped, the vessel being a little way out from the wall of the wharf;
and, the next instant, jumping down on the deck, I found myself on board
a ship for the first time in my life.

CHAPTER TWO.

MY FRIEND THE BOATSWAIN.

I soon made the discovery on getting there, however, that I was neither
alone nor unobserved; for a man called out to me almost the same instant
that my feet touched the deck.

"Hullo, youngster!" he shouted.

"Do you mean me?" I asked him politely, as father bad trained me always
to address every one, no matter what their social condition might be.

"An' is it manin' yez, I am?" retorted my interlocutor sharply. "Tare
an' 'ouns, av coorse it is! Who ilse should I mane?"

The speaker was a stout, broad-shouldered, middle-aged man, clad in a
rough blue jersey as to the upper portion of his body, and wearing below
a rather dirty pair of canvas overalls drawn over his trousers, which,
being longer, projected at the bottom and overlapped his boots, giving
him an untidy look.

He was busy superintending a gang of dock labourers in their task of
hoisting up in the air a number of large crates and heavy deal packing-
cases from the jetty alongside, where they were piled up promiscuously
in a big heap of a thousand or so and more, and then, when the crane on
which these items of cargo were thus elevated had been swung round until
right over the open hatchway, giving entrance to the main-hold of the
ship, they were lowered down below as quickly as the tackle could be
eased off and the suspending chain rattle through the wheel-block abov