“It’s my turn to speak now,” said Mrs Strong, smiling lovingly at her frank, manly-looking son. “No soldiering.”
“I don’t want to be a soldier, mother,” said Mark gloomily. “I want to travel; and as I have kept to my books as father wished during his last two voyages, and won my certificates, he might give me the prize I worked for.”
“Why, you ungrateful young dog,” cried the captain, “haven’t I given you a first-class watch?”
“Yes, father; but that isn’t the prize I want. I say: do take me with you.”
“Take you with me!” cried the captain with an impatient snort such as a sea-horse might give. “Here, mother, what have you been doing with this boy?”
“Doing everything I could to set him against the sea, my dear,” said Mrs Strong sadly.
“And a nice mess you have made of it,” growled the captain. “Pass my tobacco. Well, Mark, my lad; I want my spell ashore to be happy and restful, and when there’s a rock ahead I must steer clear of it at once; so here goes, my lad, I may as well say it and have done with it. I know so much of the sea that I shall never consent to your being a sailor. Your mother is with me there. Eh, my dear?”
“Yes, James, thoroughly,” said Mrs Strong.
“Now, my lad, you’ve got to make the best of it.”
“But if you would take me for one voyage only, father, I wouldn’t ask you to take me again.”