Chapter Twenty Two.
In which a story is begun and not finished, which I think the reader will regret as much as, at the time, I did.
The boat was soon alongside of the West Indiaman, which had been tiding it down Limehouse Reach under her topsails, there being but little wind, and that contrary; but now that she had arrived to Greenwich Reach she had braced up, with her head the right way. My box was handed up the side, and I made my appearance on the deck soon afterwards, with my telescope in my hand.
“Are you the lad for whom the pilot sent the boat?” inquired a man, whom I afterwards found to be the second mate.
“Yes,” replied I.
“Well, there he is abaft, in a P-jacket,” said he, walking to the gangway, and directing the men to drop the boat astern.
I looked aft, and perceived my future master talking with the captain of the vessel. Philip Bramble was a spare man, about five feet seven inches high, he had on his head a low-crowned tarpaulin hat, a short P-jacket (so called from the abbreviation of pilot’s jacket) reached down to just above his knees. His features were regular, and, indeed, although weatherbeaten, they might be termed handsome. His nose was perfectly straight, his lips thin, his eyes grey and very keen; he had little or no whiskers, and, from his appearance and the intermixture of grey with his brown hair, I supposed him to be about fifty years of age. In one hand he held a short clay pipe, into which he was inserting the forefinger of the other, as he talked with the captain. At the time that he was pointed out to me by the second mate he was looking up aloft; I had, therefore, time to make the above observations before he cast his eyes down and perceived me, when I immediately went aft to him.
“I suppose you are Tom Saunders?” said he, surveying me from head to foot.
I replied in the affirmative.
“Well, Anderson has given you a good character, mind you don’t lose it. D’ye think you’ll like to be a pilot?”