"And my mother got to Portsmouth this morning to see me, and she hasn't much money, and can only stay a week, and I can't go ashore to see her because I didn't keep my face clean and mussed my jacket."
"Why didn't you behave yourself, then?" promptly and severely asked his young friend. "Papa always behaved himself when he was a little boy like you."
This last very much incensed Dicky.
"Now look here, young lady," he said, "I'm an officer and a gentleman! Didn't you hear your father call me so just now? And if people in this ship call the officers 'little boys,' they'll get put in irons as likely as not. As for the officers behaving themselves when they were midshipmen, everybody knows they were angels—sea-angels—and the steerage was a little heaven. Oh, they didn't catch cockroaches—not they! And all the time they weren't on duty they were studying or saying their prayers. And as for skylarking, why, they never heard of such a thing! I'll tell you what—eh, what's your name?"
"Polly," answered Bright Eyes.
"Well, Polly, it ain't true that 'whom the gods love die young'; for if it were, there wouldn't be an officer of this ship alive to-day. Barham and I ain't going to die young, though. The gods don't love us, nor the captain neither."
"You oughtn't to talk so about dying," answered Polly, gravely. "You never had your mamma to die. Sometimes, when I've stayed on board all night, I've waked up and seen papa sitting by me, looking so strange and sad, and I know he is thinking about mamma, although he says, 'Go to sleep, my dear, nothing is the matter!' and I can see the tears on his cheek; and my papa is a brave sailor too. He says he knows I ought to go to school, but he can't bear to part with me." This very proudly.
"I dare say," said Dicky, mournfully, "it will break my mother's heart when she has come all this long way to see me, and can't see me. And she will be sure to think I have done something scandalous. I know she will!"
This worked so upon Polly's feelings that she said:
"Come here, and I'll get some pictures and show you."