“To humiliate me!” cried Steve.
“There you go again, blazing out. No, hardly to humiliate you; but, even if he does, who the salts of tartar are you, sir, that you are not to be spoken to and humiliated a bit when you have gone wrong?”
“Oh, I’m nobody,” said Steve bitterly; “I’m a donkey and an ass.”
“Yes,” said the doctor quietly, “but that is rather running wild; a donkey and an ass are the same thing, Stevey, my lad. If the captain says a few things to cut your comb a little, they will do you good; and I am as certain as that I am sitting here that he will end by saying, ‘There, my boy, then, that’s an end of it. Let it be a lesson to you. Now shake hands.’”
“He wouldn’t say that. He’d send me out of the cabin feeling more miserable than I feel now.”
“I know better than that, my lad. You’re punishing yourself.”
“Then, if a boy strikes me I’m not to strike him again?” cried Steve.
“Humph! Well, I did not say that, my lad, exactly.”
“What was I to do, sir? Was I to let that miserable, disagreeable young rascal, who has been insulting and sneering at me ever since we started from Nordoe, knock me about, and I not retaliate?”
The doctor looked puzzled.