Some hours afterward, when Somers had to report on deck, he bore unmistakable marks of his encounters. His nose was considerably larger than usual, one eye had a black patch over it, and there was a bit of skin missing from his chin.
Stewart, looking at him attentively, could scarcely keep his face straight as he remarked:
“Falling down the ladder, I presume, Mr. Somers, from your appearance. You should be careful, though, not to fall down too often.”
“Yes, sir, I did fall down,” answered Somers, very diplomatically, without mentioning that, when he fell, a messmate was on top of him.
That day’s work established Somers’s popularity in the steerage, and the three midshipmen whom he had pommeled became his staunch friends. “And I’ll tell you what,” he announced, “this is the last fighting I’ll do while I am in this mess. You fellows may walk over me if you like, before I will take the trouble to lick any more of you.”
But nobody walked over him after that.
Decatur gave immediate promise of brilliancy as a seaman; but Somers was not far behind, and his uncommon steadiness recommended him highly to the lieutenants. Stewart, dining one night in the cabin with the commodore, was giving his impressions of the junior officers to the commander, who wished to appoint a master’s mate of the hold—a place always given to the most reliable and best informed of the midshipmen.
“They are all as fine a lot of youngsters, sir, as I ever saw. That young Decatur is a remarkable fellow. He finds out more than any of the rest, because he never has to ask the same thing twice. Before he had been on board a week he knew every rope and where each is belayed; and the clever youngster writes with a pencil, behind the rail, everything he is told. There’s a very good manual of seamanship written under the starboard rail, and Decatur and Somers may be seen every day, when they are not on duty, putting their heads together and studying it out.”
“And how about young Somers?” asked the commodore.
“Somers is the only one who rivals Decatur, and I must say I consider him the best-balanced young fellow of his age I ever knew. His messmates have nicknamed him ‘Old Reliable.’ He is not so brilliant a boy as Decatur, but he is steady to the utmost degree. Nothing flusters him. He is never too early, and never too late; he goes on his way quietly, and I do not think he has had a reproof since he has been on board. And he evidently studied seamanship thoroughly before he was commissioned—just what I should expect of such a long-headed fellow.”