"So say we all of us!"
"The snivelling, canting, whining puppy! Have you any idea that his merit-marks made him captain of the ship?" continued Howe.
"I suppose they did."
"Tell that to the marines! Wasn't he acknowledged to be the worst fellow in the ship when we crossed the Atlantic? Wasn't he the ringleader in all mischief and scrapes?"
"But he has reformed."
"Reformed!" sneered Howe. "He has turned hypocrite, if that is what you mean by reformed. I don't believe in that sort of bosh."
"He's the pet of the principal and the instructors."
"Yes; and they have given him marks enough to make him captain, just to show good fellows, like you and me, what a saint can do. It is all humbug! Why, he got more marks than Kendall, Gordon, Haven, and the rest of those cabin nobs, who are fit to enter the senior class in a college. I am satisfied that his merit-roll was doctored so as to make it come out as it did."
"I don't believe Lowington would do any such thing as that," suggested Spencer, shaking his head.
"Don't you? Well, I do. What's the use of talking! Didn't Shuffles jump from the steerage into the captain's state-room?"