"Humph! I wish you could make it earlier. Well, we must put up with that since it is the best you can do. Goodness knows I'd be the last one to discourage learning in the young. I got all too little of it when I was a shaver. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I'd had my chance. I shipped to sea when I was only twelve—would go—nothing would stop me—and I've been knocking round ever since, picking up here and there what scraps of knowledge I could get. Don't let anything tempt you to sea till you're full-grown, sonny, for you'll live to regret it, sure as my name is Jerry Taylor."
Walter flushed guiltily, wondering as he did so whether Jerry's little blue eyes had bored their way into his skull and read there his aspirations.
"Nope!" went on the sailor. "Take it from me, seafaring is a man's job. You much better stay ashore and——" he stopped as if at a loss and then smiling broadly added, "play governess to a pack of dogs."
"I figure that is about what I'm going to do," replied His Highness with a comic air of resignation.
"Well, what's the matter with that?" inquired Jerry sharply. "You'll be getting paid for it, won't you—well paid? And you'll have cozy quarters all to yourself, and three good meals a day. Land alive! Some folks want the earth! Why, when I was your age, I was swung up in a hammock between decks with not an inch of space that I could call my own. If I wanted to stow away anything I hadn't a place to put it where it wasn't common property. As for meals I took what I could get and was thankful that I didn't starve. And here you come along and tilt up your freckled pug nose at a room and board and ten a week. Bah! What's come over this generation anyway?"
"I wasn't turning up my nose," Walter ventured to protest. "It turns up anyhow."
"Then you need to be careful how you make it go higher," grinned Jerry.
"And—and—I had no idea you meant to pay me that much."
"What do you think we are up here?" bristled Jerry. "A sweatshop? No siree! We stand for the square deal every time, we do. Only you've got to understand, young one, that it's to be square on both sides. You're to do no shirking; if you do you'll get fired so quick you'll wonder what hit you. But if you do your part you need have no worries. Now think good and plenty before you embark on the cruise."
"I have thought."