The boy had heard of boozing kens, and he wondered if he was in one now. Anyhow, he believed he could take care of himself.
A buxom middle-aged landlady presently came in, and Jack said something to her in an undertone. She smiled most pleasantly, and patted Kep's hand. "Poor boy!" she said, "nothing must come over him then."
Kep called for more stout all round, and threw down a sovereign. But this fresh supply stood for some time untouched, for the lads of the Royal Navy are not now what they were in the days of Dibdin.
"I'll call Katie, my daughter," said the landlady, "as I must attend to duty. Katie dear, come this way."
Kep thought he had never seen so winsome a girl before and he asked her to have something, but she took positively no notice.
Only a minute after, she pulled Kep on to her knee.
"The sweet little lamb," she said, "and oh, the black eyes of him. Jack, he is his mother's wopsy-popsy, I'll bet."
"What--how--why," the boy cried, wriggling away from her. "Can't you see I'm a man? Fourteen and began again?"
But Katie soothed him. "I'm sure you'd like a cup of tea," she said.
Kep would.