“Are you sure it isn’t a mistake?”
“Quite.”
“Because you are going on over this like a fellow of twenty-seventeen. What do you think one of the men said just now?”
“How should I know?”
“He said that when this little job was over you ought to be promoted and have a ship of your own, and old Strake turned upon him sharply to say, ‘Well, why not?’”
“I? A ship!” laughed Syd; “and this is my first voyage. Why, you have been three.”
“Yes, but then your people have always been sailors, and it’s born with you. My father’s a clergyman. Well, when you do have a ship by and by, if you don’t have me for first luff, I’ll call you a brute.”
“Wait twenty years, then, till I get my ship,” said Syd; and he went off to see to the watch.