“Temperance?” asked the man.
“The worst kind,” replied Chase.
“Stick to it. You’ll be a captain some day.”
“I think not,” returned the boy; “I have had enough of sailoring already, and I’ll never put my foot on a ship again as one of the crew. I will carry a hod on shore first.”
“Ah! ran away from home, did you?”
“No, I did not. I shipped aboard the Petrel in Cuba, supposing that she was bound for the States; but she took me to the Sandwich Islands and then brought me here. I want to go home by the easiest and quickest route I can find, and I shall start as soon as I receive money from my father.”
“You ain’t strapped, be you?”
“Not quite. I want to write a letter to my father at once,” continued Chase. “I shall hear from him in ten days or two weeks, and, in the meantime, I want some cheap place to stay.”
“Well, you’re in it now. You couldn’t find a better place in Fr’isco. How much be you going to ask your father for?”
“I suppose it will take considerable money to buy me some shore-clothes and pay my railroad, stage and steamboat fare all the way home,” said Chase, rather surprised at the question—“two hundred dollars, perhaps.”