“Well,” replied Gascoigne, “it’s the first time I ever heard a middy do such a bold thing; take care your rights of man don’t get you in the wrong box—there’s no arguing on board of a man-of-war. The captain took it amazingly easy, but you’d better not broach that subject too often.”
“Gascoigne gives you very good advice, Mr Easy,” observed Jolliffe; “allowing that your ideas are correct, which it appears to me they are not, or at least impossible to be acted upon, there is such a thing as prudence, and however much this question may be canvassed on shore, in his Majesty’s service it is not only dangerous in itself, but will be very prejudicial to you.”
“Man is a free agent,” replied Easy.
“I’ll be shot if a midshipman is,” replied Gascoigne, laughing, “and that you’ll soon find.”
“And yet it was the expectation of finding that equality that I was induced to come to sea.”
“On the first of April, I presume,” replied Gascoigne. “But are you really serious?”
Hereupon Jack entered into a long argument, to which Jolliffe and Gascoigne listened without interruption, and Mesty with admiration: at the end of it, Gascoigne laughed heartily and Jolliffe sighed.
“From whence did you learn all this?” inquired Jolliffe.
“From my father, who is a great philosopher, and has constantly upheld these opinions.”
“And did your father wish you to go to sea?”