"This is some mistake," said the owner graciously, after preliminary compliment had been duly observed. "How is it that you are rated on the books as a boy--you as much a man as you will ever be?"
"A long voyage, sir, slow sailing and delays over so many disasters as befell us, three years out in the stead of a year and a half--all that brings one to man's estate before his reckoning."
"But the last part of the time you must have done able seaman's service?"
"The captain and I together," said Andrew with his bright laugh. "We were officers and crew and passengers, cox'n and cook, as they say."
"A hard experience," said Mr. Maurice.
"Oh, not at all, but worth its weight in gold--to me, at least. Why, sir, it taught me how to handle a ship as six years before the mast couldn't have done."
"Good! We shall see to what purpose one of these days. And you have had your share of schooling, they tell me?"
"All that the academy had to give, sir."
"And that's enough for any one who has the world to tussel with. How should you like to have gone through such hard lines, Frarnie?" turning to his daughter, a pale, moon-faced girl, her father's darling.
"Were you never afraid?" she asked in her pretty simpering way.