"Are they, sir?"
"Ay! that they are, my lad; they'll want a shilling to row you aboard, or perhaps as you're a orficer, like, they'll want two shillings."
Bob's heart sank.
"But thruppence is plenty, speshly as you ain't got no kit."
Bob's spirits rose again, and the man began to whistle a very doleful tune, but left off in a minute or two.
"Like holidays?" he said suddenly.
"Yes, very much."
"I don't," said the sailor, "goes home to see my old mother, and she don't want me to come away again. Says she shan't never see me no more if I go, but she allus does. This makes ten times in ten years I've been, since I went to sea. Awful old."
"Is she?" said the Skipper.
"Awful. Eighty-seven, and looks ninety. You'd like her."