"I'll go with you, if you'll take me," said Archie. "And I can never, never forget that you——"
"Sure," Billy Topsail interrupted, flushing, "you'll go with me t' New Bay. An' times we'll have of it!"
"Good-bye!"
"Good-bye, b'y!"
And so they parted on terms of perfect equality.
That summer, Billy Topsail went to New Bay. But it was not in a skiff; it was in a swift little sloop, especially made to be sailed by a crew of one. It came North, mysteriously, from St. John's, to the wonder of all Green Bay; and its name was Rescue. And a letter came North for Bill o' Burnt Bay: which, when he read it, stirred him to the profoundest depth of his rugged old heart, for he roared in a most unmannerly fashion that he'd "be busted if he'd take a thing for standin' by such a lad!" In reply to a second letter, however, Bill said he would "be willin' t' take it on credit, if he'd be 'lowed t' pay for it as he could." So that is how Bill o' Burnt Bay came to sail to the Labrador in his own fore-and-after, when the fish were running.
And, once, Sir Archibald Armstrong turned to his son. "Well, my boy," he said, slowly, "I've been wanting to ask you a question. What do you think of your shipmates?"
"I think they're heroes, every one!" Archie answered.
"Do you think you now know the difference between a man and a tailor's lay-figure?"