“No; but you are a mate, and if just being a mate is going to make such an awful gap, what must being a king make? It must be a lonesome thing to be a king.”
“What a queer fellow you are, Ned! I always thought you were about as spunky and ambitious a boy as I ever knew. You wouldn’t want to be a boy always—would you?”
“No; I don’t know as I should want to be always a boy; but I don’t like stepping over the edge all of a sudden; at any rate, I don’t like to see everybody else stepping over, and leaving me to be boy alone.”
“Perhaps you’ll get to be second mate next voyage, and then we can be together again.”
“I might if I was older, or if I was only a Griffin, or a Murch, or a Rhines, who are as big when they are seventeen as others when they are men grown. Here you are, a great fellow, your feet sticking out of bed, while my toes are only down to your knees.”
“But you are growing all the time; you can steer a good trick now, and do anything that your strength is equal to, as well as any man in the vessel; you must be patient, Ned.”
“O, if I was only a little bigger, so that I could furl the royal in wet weather, or when it blows hard! I didn’t use to care so much for you, but I should so hate to have any of the crew come up to help me!”
“I’ll have a bunt-line rove for it.”
“O, thank you; then I can handle it any time.”