ought your interest was to avoid trouble for twenty-four hours."

II.

By the Industrial Schools Act of 1866, 29 & 30 Vict. c. 118, it is
ordained that any youngster apparently under the age of fourteen
found begging, or wandering destitute, or consorting with thieves, or
obstinately playing truant from school, or guilty of being neglected
by his parents, or of defying his parents, or of having a parent who
has incurred a sentence of penal servitude--may by any two justices
be committed to a certified Industrial School, there to be detained
until he reaches the age of sixteen, or for a shorter term if the
Justices shall so direct. Such an Industrial School was the
ex-battleship _Egeria_.

She had carried seventy-four guns in her time; and though gunless now
and jury-masted, was redolent still of the Nelson period from her
white-and-gold figure-head to the beautiful stern galleries which
Commander Headworthy had adorned with window-boxes of Henry Jacoby
geraniums. The Committee in the first flush of funds had spared no
pains to reproduce the right atmosphere, and in that atmosphere
Commander Headworthy laudably endeavoured to train up his crew of
graceless urchins, and to pass them out at sixteen, preferably into
the Navy or the Merchant Service, but at any rate as decent members
of society. Nor were the boys' nautical experiences entirely
stationary, since a wealthy sympathiser (lately deceased) had
bequeathed his fine brigantine yacht to serve the ship as a tender
and take a few score of the elder or more privileged lads on an
annual summer cruise, that they might learn something of practical
seamanship.

The yacht--by name the _Swallow_--an old but shapely craft of some
two hundred tons, lay just now a short cable's length from the parent
ship, with sails bent and all ready for sea; for by custom the annual
cruise started on the day next after the prize-giving.

The question was: Would Link Andrew be allowed to go?

He would have sold his soul to go. He even meditated ways of
suicide if the Commander, for a punishment, should veto his going.
During the last three weeks he had run up an appalling tally of black
marks, and yet it was generally agreed that the Commander would
relent if Link would only keep his temper and behave with common
prudence for another twenty-four hours.

But this was just what Link seemed wholly unable to do. He hated the
ship, the officers, everything in life; and the hot July