“Two chances open on the same voyage!” he exclaimed. “I never knew of that before, and just before sailing. How do you account for it—somebody taken sick?”
“That’s it,” said the boy.
Young Mr. Jenkins walked slowly back to his seat, looked sharply at Harvey from the comers of his eyes, and spoke earnestly.
“Say, Mr. Harvey,” he said, “I’m not sure, but I believe I could get that chance for you. You played in great luck when I saw you throw that heaving line to the vessel there, this afternoon. I’ll swear to Captain Scroop that you’re all right, and I know you could make good. Do you know I’ve taken a sort of liking to you; and I tell you what, you and I’ll ship for one month and I’ll see you through. Why, they’re all like brothers here, the captain and his men. We’ll have a gorgeous time, see how the fishing is done, come back in a month and have twenty-five dollars apiece to show for it. And then you’ll have had a real sea experience—something to talk about when you get home. It’s the chance of a life-time.”
Taken all by surprise by the offer, and withal against his better judgment, Jack Harvey found a strange allurement in the suggestion. At no time in all his life could it have been held forth so opportunely. He thought of his father and mother, on the ocean, to be gone for six months. He knew, too, what his father would say, when he should tell him of it later; how the bluff, careless, elder Harvey would throw back his head, and laugh, and vow he was the same sort when he was a youth.
How strangely, too, events that had taken place in Benton coincided favourably with his already half-formed intention to take the chance. He recalled, in a flash, the hour of leaving there, with his father and mother, for Baltimore; how Henry Burns’s aunt, with whom he had been boarding, had asked when he would return; how Harvey’s mother had answered that she hoped yet to persuade the boy to accompany them to Europe; and how Miss Matilda Burns had said, then, she should expect him when he arrived—no sooner—and had remarked, smiling, that if he didn’t come back at all she should know he had gone to Europe.
“It’s only for a month, you know,” suggested young Mr. Jenkins, almost as though he had been reading Harvey’s thoughts.
Harvey sat for a moment, thinking hard.
“Isn’t it pretty cold down there in the bay this time of year?” he asked.
“Why, bless you, no,” replied Mr. Jenkins, laughing at the suggestion. “Don’t you know you’re in the South, now, my boy? This is the coldest day, right now, that we’ll have till January. And if we have a touch of winter—which isn’t likely—why, there’s a good, comfortable cabin to warm up in.”