"Why, with a shore-boat, of course. You don't imagine, do you, that they would call away the first whaler for a kinchin like you, though you do look pretty fit."
"Well, anyhow, I'm going to join that ship and sail in her."
"As what?" he asked. "Second lieutenant, paymaster, or what? Mebbe you'd like to take command of her. I'm sure you have only to wire the Admiralty to get appointed right away."
Kep's eyes were riveted on the _Breezy_, and he was all a-quiver with a new-born excitement.
The man now laid a kindly hand on his shoulder.
"Run away from your parents, haven't you?"
"Well, but take a man-o'-war sailor's advice. Don't go on board the _Breezy_; if you do, you'll get copped and sent home again. And it is there you should be. If I did my duty now----"
They were soon seated in the parlour of an inn, where Jack seemed to be well known. There was a foaming tankard in front of the sailor and one by Kep, which he pretended to sip, but fought shy of.
Kep told Jack little bits about himself, but no more than Jack could conveniently swallow.
"Have you been much abroad, sir?" said Kep. The "sir" almost stuck in the boy's throat, but then, this man had many stripes on his sleeve, and Kep thought it as well to err on the safe side.
"Been kicked about a lot, sonny, if that's what you mean. I'm eight and twenty, and next commission may be my last--"
"No, no, lad, only if I do two years more, my time will be about up, but I'll join on again, 'cause I dearly love the sea. I say, young fellow, you're not drinking yours."
"Never meant to. Ordered it for company's sake."
"Thought so. There's a pal o' mine in the bar, he could let daylight inside that tankard if your lordship will allow me to call him in."
The pal, a young man, clean-shaven and very baggy about the lower garments, did let daylight into the tankard after nodding frankly to Kep.
The boy had heard of boozing kens, and he wondered if he was in one now. Anyhow, he believed he could take care of himself.
A buxom middle-aged landlady presently came in, and Jack said something to her in an undertone. She smiled most pleasantly, and patted Kep's hand. "Poor boy!" she said, "nothing must come over him then."
Kep called for more stout all round, and threw down a sovereign. But this fresh supply stood for some time untouched, for the lads of the Royal Navy are not now what they were in the days of Dibdin.