"What! A strong, healthy young fellow like you? Nonsense! Not if you care to lend a willing hand."
"Oh, I'm anxious enough to do that."
"Then you'll pull through. Them as is anxious and willing always do. I didn't have much to start on when I settled in the city. Only six months' pay at sixteen dollars a month."
"How came you to leave the sea?" asked the boy, with considerable curiosity, for Doc Linyard was the first regular sailor he had ever known.
"Oh, you see I was wrecked a couple of times, and lost one leg; this," he tapped his left knee, "is only a cork one, you know, and then the wife grew afeared, and said as how she wanted me ashore. But a tar used to the rigging and sech don't take kindly to labor on land, so instead of working for other people, I up and started the Watch Below."
"What is it—a boarding-house?"
"Not exactly, though we do occasionally take a fellow in. It's a temperance lunch-room for sailors, with regular first-class ship grub; lobscouse, plum-duff and sech. Most of the fellows know me, and hardly a soul comes ashore but what drops in afore he leaves port."
"It must pay."
"I don't get fancy prices and only make a living. I'd like to ask you down, only maybe it wouldn't be fine enough."
Doc Linyard had noticed Richard's neat appearance, and saw that the boy was accustomed to having everything "nice."