“I say, Master Aleck.”
“Eh? Yes, Tom.”
“I’ve been a-thinking that as a reg’lar thing I’m a bit skeart o’ the captain. He’s such a fierce, cut-you-off-short sort of a gentleman that I’m always glad to get away when I’ve been up to the Den to do anything for yer—pitching the boat’s bottom or mending holes, or overhauling the tackle; but I tell you what—”
“Well, what, Tom?” said Aleck, for the sailor stopped short and crossed his two dwarf wooden legs in the bottom of the boat, and then, as if not satisfied, crossed them the other way on.
“I was thinking, Master Aleck, that you and me’s been messmates like, ever since I come back from sea.”
“Yes, Tom.”
“I mean in a proper way, sir,” cried the man, hurriedly. “I don’t mean shoving myself forrard, because well I know you’re a young gen’leman and I’m on’y a pensioned-off hulk as has never been anything more than a AB.”
“I don’t know what you’re aiming at, Tom,” said Aleck, querulously, as he went on bathing his bruised face again. “Of course we’ve been like messmates many a time out with the boat, but what has that to do with the trouble I’m in?”
“Well, just this here, sir. Messmates is messmates, and ought to help one another when there’s rocks ahead.”
“Of course, Tom.”