“Yes, sir,” Kit answered. “It is a steamer that belongs to no regular line, but goes wherever she can get freight to carry.”
“That’s it,” the Captain assented. “And the North Cape is a tramp steamer. She belongs to no regular line, but goes wherever she can get freight to carry. She is chartered for one more voyage to Sisal after hemp, and after that she will go wherever business offers. It may be on one side of the world and it may be on the other. So if you go with me, you are just as likely to be in China six months from now, as to be in New York.”
Such a prospect made Kit’s eyes sparkle.
“I should like that very much, sir,” he answered.
“Very well, then,” the Captain resumed. “Your pay will be six dollars a month, and you are not to go ashore without leave. That is not very much pay, but on the ship you will get your board, so you will have more money at the end of the month than you would have with more pay on shore. Your work will be to do whatever you’re told, and you’ll have to walk a very straight line. Don’t think because I have talked to you so much to-night that I’m going to pet you, for I’m not. When a ship leaves port, there is only one law for everybody on board, and that is the captain’s orders.”
He paused a moment, and then went on:—
“There is another boy on this ship, the engineers’ mess-room boy. You’ve heard the old saying, I suppose, that one boy is half a boy and two boys are no boy at all. But it’s not so on the North Cape. Each boy has to be a whole boy here, from the top of his head to the soles of his boots. I don’t allow any skylarking, or any quarrelling.”
Kit saw that he was expected to make some reply, so he said, “I will try to please you, sir.”
“I think you will,” said the Captain. “Now you have a start,—not a very big one, but as good as most boys have,—and the rest lies with yourself. You can push your way up in the world, or you can make a fool of yourself and go to the dogs. Nobody but yourself can say which it shall be.”
“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” Kit answered. “I found it pretty hard to get the start, but now that I have it I shall try to make the most of it.”