I thanked him heartily, and set off home with a light heart, and a mind full of what I had seen and heard. I was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing other lands and scenes, lands full of mystery and possibilities. My mother was pleased at my success, and she and my sisters began at once to get my clothes ready, while I told them of all the wonderful things I had seen at Captain Watson’s.
There was little sleep for me that night—my mind was full of the future and what it might hold for me. I got up early, and after a good breakfast went to Water Street. Finding it was two hours off noon, the time it was arranged for me to meet Captain Watson, I went over to Prince’s Dock, and admired the vessels loading there, and wondered if it would be my good fortune to get a berth on one of them, and so passed the time until noon, when I went to the “Marine Society’s Rooms,” and asked for Captain Watson. He was there waiting for me and introduced me to Captain Crosbie of the barque “Bertie,” then loading in the Salthouse Dock and bound for Wellington, New Zealand. He was a smart, well-set man, one of the smartest men I have ever been with, tall, alert, with not an ounce of spare flesh on him, hair as black as night and a pair of eyes like gimlets that seemed to be looking both at you and in you.
“Um, ah,” he said, “you want to go to sea, do you, what for?”
“I want to see foreign lands, sir,” I answered, “and I want to be a sailor.”
“You want to be a sailor, um. You want to look for trouble evidently. How old are you?”
“Turned fourteen, sir.”
“Well you’re big enough anyhow, and you look strong enough. Fond of work, eh?”
“I’ll do my share, sir.”
“I’ve no doubt you’ll do that and a bit over, remember a sailor’s life is not all sunshine and blue skies like you read of in books, there are stormy nights and days, and times when you have to hold on by the skin of your teeth. How would you like to be sent up aloft in a gale of wind, eh? I expect you’d wish yourself back on shore, there’s no back door at sea you know.”
“Well, sir, I’d have to do the same as the rest, and do the best I could.”