“Yes, I have heard of her,” answered Paul, curiously.
“I saw her first at Christiansand, and went on board of her with my mother and sister. I liked the looks of her, and fancied the young chaps on board of her were having a nice time. I wanted to ship in her, and I did so; but I was never among such a set of tyrants in the whole course of my life.”
“Then you joined the ship,” replied Paul, who had heard of the new addition to the Young America’s crew, but had not seen him.
“I’m blamed if I didn’t; but before my mother left the ship, a big bully of a boatswain insulted me, and I changed my mind. Yet the head master persuaded my mother to let him keep me in the ship, and I’m blamed if she didn’t leave me there.”
“Left you there,” added Paul, when Clyde paused, apparently to give his auditor the opportunity to express his sympathy for his unfortunate situation.
“Yes, sir; she left me there, and she won’t hear the last of it for one year,” replied Clyde, shaking his head. “It was a mean trick, and I’ll pay her for it.”
“Probably she did it for the best,” suggested Paul, disgusted with the assurance, and especially with the want of respect for his mother which the youth manifested, though he was anxious to hear the conclusion of his story.
“I don’t care what she did it for; it was a scurvy trick. I told her I wouldn’t stay in the ship, any how, and she permitted the big boatswain to hold me while she went ashore in a boat. But I knew myself, if my mother didn’t know me, and I determined not to stay in her three days; and I didn’t,” chuckled Clyde, as he thought of what he called his own cleverness.
“What did you do?” asked Paul, deeply interested.
“I was willing to bide my time, and so I hauled sheets, and luffed, and tacked, and all that sort of thing, till we got to Christiania. When I was pulling the main boom, or something of that kind,—I don’t just know what it was now,—one of the fellows in gold bands insulted me.”