“Never mind about that,” the Captain laughed. “And now, Mr. Supercargo, you must leave me to my work, for I have a great deal to do to-night. Do you think you could find me a good cabin boy to take your place?”
“Yes, sir, I think I could,” Kit answered; and he thought immediately of Harry Leonard, of Huntington.
“Then I will leave that matter with you,” the Captain said, turning again to his work.
Kit had to go on deck again for a little fresh air after this sudden change in his fortunes, and in his rapid march to and fro he met Tom Haines, and was on the point of telling him the news, but stopped himself. “I must tell the folks at home first of all,” he thought; and after a little chat with Tom about other matters, in which Kit hardly knew what he was talking about, he went down to the cabin to write a letter.
“I hoped to be with you in Huntington by this time,” he began, “but you will have to put up with a ten-dollar note and a bit of good news.”
Then he told the story of his promotion as plainly as his excited mind would permit, and added, “Don’t mind taking the money, for I have a little more, and of course I will get an advance for a long voyage like that. I shall need some new clothes; for what is good enough for a cabin boy would hardly be decent for a supercargo.”
And at the end he sent a message for Vieve to take to Harry Leonard. “If he’s not second mate of that bark yet, maybe he would like to be cabin boy of the North Cape at six dollars a month. I can get him the place if he wants it, but he must come or let me know the very day you get this, or it will be too late. And now for Barbadoes, folks, and London! across the big ocean and back again! I was hoping for that, you know. I’ll write again, of course, before we sail.”
Kit’s interview with Hunter & Hitchley next day was something of an ordeal, for after the contract was signed they had endless instructions to give him. A hundred things he must attend to with the greatest care; and another hundred things he must avoid; and such and such firms must be seen in New York, and so and so in Barbadoes, and in London.
“You are very young for this work,” Mr. Hitchley told him, “but Captain Griffith has recommended you highly. We take you altogether on his recommendation.”
“I will do my best to give satisfaction, sir,” Kit answered. He had made the same promise on becoming a cabin boy, and kept it, and was determined to keep it again.