“If iver the likes of me can do you a favor, Mister Tom, I hope you won’t be too proud to let me.”
“I promise that, Mike. The time may come when I’ll want a friend, and if I know where you are, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tom. I’m a poor fellow, but I can fight for you anyway.”
“I can fight for myself, too,” said Tom, smiling. “I’ve had to, more than once.”
There was another passenger, of quite a different character, with whom Tom became intimate, and to whom, also, he was able to do a service.
One morning he noticed an elderly man, evidently quite feeble, attempting with the help of a cane to pace the deck—about the only exercise practicable on shipboard. But the vessel was so unsteady that the old man found the task too great for his strength, and he was finally obliged, unwillingly, to sit down.
“That’s a pity,” thought Tom. “I’ll offer to help him.”
He approached the old man and said:
“You find it hard work pacing the deck, don’t you, sir?”
“Yes,” answered the other. “I am not young and strong like you, and the motion of the vessel makes it too much for my scanty strength.”