"Want to ship?" said he.
"That's what I am here for," answered Tony. "Do you allow folks aboard there?"
"O, yes; come on. You don't look like a sailor man," he added, as Tony sprang over the rail and approached him.
"And when you first went to sea, you didn't look any more like a sailor than I do," replied Tony. "I know I am green, but I can learn as well as anybody, can't I?"
"Of course you can," said the boy, backing up against the rail, and running his eyes over Tony's clothes. "But I don't know whether you can stand the racket or not. You don't look to be any too stout."
"I shouldn't care to measure strength with you," said Tony, with a smile, "but still I have got a pretty good muscle, although I have never done a day's manual labor in my life."
"What kind of labor is that?" asked the young sailor.
"I mean that I have never worked with my hands. I have always worked with my head," explained Tony.
"O! Then you are not the stuff that sailors are made of," was the rather disheartening rejoinder. "I didn't think you could stand the racket."
"Is it a hard life?"