“Humph! perhaps not, Tom.”
“No perhaps about it, dear old boy.”
“But I must punish him.”
“No, you mustn’t. I won’t have him punished. I like the young dog’s spirit. We said he should go to sea. He said he didn’t want to go, and sooner than do what he didn’t like he cut and run, till he found out he was making a fool of himself, and when he did find it out he came and said so like a man.”
“Well, yes,” said the captain, “he did confess, but this must not be passed over lightly.”
“Bah! Tchah! Pah! let it be. You see if he don’t come the humble to-morrow morning, and want us to let him go to sea.”
“Think so?”
“Sure of it, my dear boy. I’m not angry with him a bit. He showed that he had some spirit in running away.”
“And that he was a cur in sneaking back.”
“Steady there,” cried the admiral, “nothing of the kind. I say it took more pluck to come back and face us, and own he was in the wrong, than to run away.”