“I see how it is,” said Ned, sadly. “The good times are all over. There’s going to be a great, high, solid wall, reaching clear up to the sky, built right up between us.”
“O, not so bad as that, Ned. There will be cracks and chinks in it, where we can peek through, and boys must change into men some time or other.”
“I suppose so, Walter; but I wish the change had not come quite yet.”
“I wish so, too. There’s time enough for me these some years yet. But it would never have done for me to refuse the berth when it was offered me. It would have looked as though I did not know how to appreciate kind treatment, and I should never have had another offer. We can’t have everything and keep everything.”
The ambitions, cares, and responsibilities of practical life lay a ruthless hand upon the sympathies and yearnings of young hearts, and the conversation of the boys may, to the minds of older persons who read these pages, recall similar experiences, when the relations of master and servant were rudely thrust between playfellows and near friends.
“Cheer up, Ned,” said Walter, noticing the downcast looks of his friend; “we will sleep together once more, at any rate. I’m going to stay here to-night, and take you aboard with me in the morning; that’s the order.”
When they were snug in bed, Ned lay for a long time silent. Walter thought him asleep, and had just begun to doze himself, when he was roused by Ned exclaiming, abruptly, “I’m sure I shouldn’t want to be a king.”
“Nor I either; I don’t believe in ‘em; but what in the world has put that into your head just now?”
“Well, I have been thinking over all the good times we’ve had when we were in the same watch, slept in the same berth, and ate out of the same kid. In good weather we could sit side by side under the lee of the boat, or under the rail, and talk and enjoy ourselves. In our forenoon watch below, we could comb each other’s hair, tie our cues, read and study navigation; then, being in the same watch, we always got liberty ashore together. Right in the midst of all these good times comes up this chief mate’s affair, takes you right away from me, and sticks you up on the quarter-deck. It’s no longer Ned and Walter; O, no; it’s Mr. Griffin and Gates. I can’t speak to you, for fear the men should think I was currying favor; you can’t speak to me, lest there should be growling about partiality. O, I shouldn’t want to be a king, to be stuck up for everybody to look at, and nobody to love. If people obeyed me, I should know it was because they couldn’t help it; if they pretended to love me, I should be sure they lied.”
“But I ain’t a king, Ned.”