tt.

"Indeed I should, sir," answered Owen; "but I want to make myself useful
to you also, if you can show me how."

"Certainly you can," said the captain; "you shall act as my clerk, and
you will be of great assistance to me."

Fine weather continued, and the "Druid" had a quick passage down
channel. Owen, from the first set to work to learn the names of all the
sails and ropes, indeed of everything onboard.

There were several other boys--apprentices--of whom two were called
midshipmen, although they had to do the same duty as the rest. Captain
Aggett had entered Owen as an apprentice, but he was looked upon as the
captain's guest, and only mixed with the others when on duty. He was
busy from morning until night, always learning something, when not
engaged in writing for the captain in the cabin. He quickly mastered
all the simpler details of seamanship, while the captain in the
meantime, according to his promise, gave him instruction in navigation;
so that he was shortly able not only to take meridional observations
correctly (or to shoot the sun, as midshipmen call it), and to work a
day's work as well as anyone, but to use the chronometer and to take a
lunar.

Owen was not a prodigy; any lad of intelligence; who possesses a
sufficient knowledge of mathematics, may do the same. He learned to
steer, beginning first in fine weather, and he soon could go aloft and
and and reef with any of the lads in the ship, some of whom had already
made two or three voyages. The rapid proficiency he acquired, and the
favour bestowed upon him by the captain, created some jealousy in the
breasts of several of his younger shipmates. Strange to say, the first
mate, Jonas Scoones, imbibed an ill-feeling for Owen, without any other
reason, as far as could be known, except that he was the captain's
favourite.

Mr Scoones was a first-rate seaman, but a poor navigator, for he was
almost destitute of education; indeed he was as rough-looking in
appearance and manners as any of the men before the mast. How Captain
Aggett had consented to his becoming first mate it was difficult to say;
perhaps he thought that his excellence as a seaman would make up for his
imperfect knowledge of navigation. He was also a good disciplinarian,
and, by mixing freely with the men, while still maintaining his own
position, he was well able to manage them. The second mate, Ralph Grey,
was a great contrast to Jonas Scoones. He was a young man of go