The fair-haired lad laughed.
"They call me Wild Charley!" he exclaimed, "and what my other name is don't matter to anybody, since I left home without asking permission to go; but in all my experience, I never traveled with a corpse."
"I'll tell you how it was," said Tommy, eagerly. "I live in Jersey City, next door to Barker, the undertaker, and his boy and me was sent to this steamer with a coffined body to go to England. We landed the stiff and went to look around the ship, and——"
Wild Charley laughed.
"I see now," he interrupted, "you weren't quick enough in getting on shore, and so you've started on a voyage without having previously declared your intentions."
"Exactly."
Wild Charley whistled.
"Indeed, what I say is true," Tommy continued, hoping to make a favorable impression upon the first friend he had met.
"I believe you," was the answer, "and I am trying to think how I can help you. My position on board of this ship is that of steward's assistant. If I said you were a friend of mine whom I had engaged to assist, you could share my bunk, do what work you could, and no one would trouble about the bit of food you eat, so long as you kept quiet and made yourself generally useful."
Tommy's eyes filled with tears again. This time they were tears of gratitude.