“Humph! look at the danger you’re in now while you are ashore,” returned Flint. “Suppose, while we are passing along this row of buildings, that a brick should fall from one of the chimneys and strike you on the head! Where would you be? Or suppose you should accidentally put yourself in the path of a runaway horse! Wouldn’t you be in danger then? The safest place in the world is on shipboard. That’s a sailor’s doctrine.”
“But it isn’t my doctrine,” said Guy. “And another thing. I don’t like to have a man swear at me and say that for two cents he would throw me into the drink. If I am to be cuffed and whipped and jawed every day I might as well be—somewhere.”
Guy was about to say that he might as well be at home, for he had run away from it on purpose to escape such discipline. He came very near exposing himself, for he had told Flint that he had no home, and he knew that was the reason the sailor was so kind to him.
“And don’t you remember how that mate beat me with a rope?” added Guy. “If you hadn’t taken my part he might have been pounding me yet, for I didn’t know where to go to find the jib down-haul.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Flint encouragingly. “A boy who goes to sea may make up his mind to one thing, and that is, he’s going to get more kicks than ha’pence. And it may not be his fault; but if he gets ’em after he learns his duties, then it is his fault. You didn’t see me struck or hear anybody say he’d throw me overboard. That’s ’cause I know my business and ’tend to it. But you will see better times after we get fairly afloat. Halloo! let’s go in here and see what’s going on.”
Flint’s attention was attracted by the sound of voices and shouts of laughter which issued from a very dingy-looking building they were at that moment passing. Guy glanced up at the sign and saw that it was a sailor’s boarding-house.
Flint opened the door that led into the public room, and Guy followed him in. The boy did not like the looks of the apartment, for it too vividly recalled to his mind the quarters occupied by the steerage passengers on board the Queen of the Lakes. It was not much like the steerage in appearance, but it was fully as gloomy and uninviting.
One side of the room was occupied with tables and chairs, and the other by a small bar, at which cheap cigars and villainous liquors were kept for sale. The floor was covered with sawdust, and littered with cigar stumps and “old soldiers,” and the walls were discolored by tobacco smoke, which filled the room almost to suffocation.
A party of sailors were seated at one of the tables, engaged in a game of “sell out,” now and then laying down their cards for a few seconds to bury their noses in tumblers of hot punch, which they kept stowed away on little shelves under the table. They looked up as Flint and his companion entered, and a man who was standing behind the bar, and who seemed to be the proprietor of the house, came forward to relieve them of their bundles, and inquired what he could do for them.
“Can you grub and lodge us ’till we find a ship?” asked Flint.