led and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Take care, my boy," said he good-humouredly, "you'll be jumping
overboard in your enthusiasm. You seem to be a born sailor. Are you
really so fond of the sea?"

"I love it! I love it!" I exclaimed enthusiastically. "Now, I can
imagine, sir, the meaning of what I read in Xenophon with father, about
the soldiers of Cyrus crying with joy when they once more beheld the sea
after their toilsome march for months and months, wandering inland over
a strange and unknown country without a sight of its familiar face to
tell them of their home by the wave-girt shores of Greece!"

"You're quite a poet, Graham," observed Mr Mackay, laughing now, though
not unkindly. There was, indeed, a tone of regret and of sadness, it
seemed to me, in his voice. "Ah, well, you'll soon have all such
romantic notions taken out of you, my boy, when you've seen some of the
hardships of a sailor's life, like others who at one time were, perhaps,
as full of ardour for their profession at the start as yourself."

"I hope not, sir," I replied seriously. "I should never like to believe
differently of it to what I do now. I think it is really something to
be proud of, being a sailor. It is glorious, it--it--it's--jolly,
that's what it is, sir!"

"A jolly sight jollier being in bed on a cold night like this," muttered
Weeks, who was shivering by the skylight, the tarpaulin cover of which
he had dragged round his legs for warmth. "Don't you think so, sir?"

"That depends," replied Mr Mackay on Sammy putting this question to him
rather impudently, as was his wont in speaking to his elders, his bump
of veneration being of the most infinitesimal proportions. "I think,
though, that a fellow who likes being on deck in a gale of wind will
turn out a better sailor than a skulker who only cares about caulking in
his bunk below; and you can put that in your pipe, Master Sam Weeks, and
smoke it!"

This had the effect of stopping any further conversation on the part of
my fellow apprentice, who retired to the lee-side of the deck in high
dudgeon with this "flea in his ear;" and, it being just four o'clock in
the morning now and the end of the middle watch, eight bells were struck
and the starbowlines summoned on deck again to duty, we of the port
watch getting some hot coffee all round at the galley and then turning
in. For this I was not sorry, as I began now to feel sleepy.

"I'd rather be a dog with the mange