His daughter brought his pipe, and, with the gentle look not yet gone from his face, he was filling it when a boyish-looking lad came aft along the starboard side of the house, sent by the mate to take the wheel. Drew, watching the captain, saw his face change. As the lad came to the quarter-deck, the captain pointed a stubby finger at him. "You—" he began harshly, and then hesitated and glanced at his daughter. The boy stopped and turned a frightened look upon the captain.
"Ever been to sea before?" demanded the captain.
"Yes, sir," faltered the boy.
"When?"
"Along the sound here—last summer," he answered.
"Ah," said the captain; then he added: "Didn't you learn the le'ward side of a vessel?"
The boy gave a startled look aloft, and then, with a flaming face, turned quickly and came back along the lee side of the house. The captain gave him the course, and without another word walked over to the rail, where his daughter stood with Drew.
"Sometimes they forget, sometimes they're green and don't know, and sometimes it's just impudence," he said in a voice that the boy could hear. "No matter which it is, ninety-nine times in a hundred the sailorman who does it tumbles right into trouble. This happened to be the hundredth time."
His daughter took him by the shoulders and shook him gently.
"Do you mean to say," she asked in a low voice, "that you might have punished that boy for coming aft on the wrong side? You could see he had forgotten or didn't know. Would you?"