“Care for him? I should think I do: he has never been out of my head all these years I have been away from home. I brought him up, I may say, since he was no higher than my knee, and I love him as if he had been my own son.”
I had led Dick, as he was speaking, to a shady spot under some tall trees on one side of the field, away from the rest of the fellows.
“I am sure you do, Dick; and Charley would be an ungrateful fellow if he did not love you from the bottom of his heart,” I answered.
Dick looked hard at me as I spoke, then grasping my hands, which I held out, he exclaimed:
“Why, as I live, you are Charley yourself! My dear, dear boy, what has come over my eyes, that I should not have known you? and yet, to be sure you are grown into a fine big fellow.”
I assured Dick that I had known him at once, and begged his pardon for the trick I had played him.
We sat down on the grass, and, as may be supposed, had a long yarn together.
Dick, as I knew, had sailed again in the Phoebe another voyage to the Pacific, and had only just returned.
“To my mind, Charley, it’s high time that you should go to sea, if you are going at all, or you will never get rid of your land ways—not that I have any fear of you now. The Phoebe is going into dock to receive a thorough repair, and I have promised Captain Renton to rejoin him as soon as she is ready for sea; and I feel sure, if you apply to the owners, they will appoint you. I set my heart on having you with me, and, to tell you the truth, I should not be happy without you. So just you ask them, and they will not say ‘nay.’”
I told Dick there was nothing I so much wished, and promised at once to write and ask Mr Dear. Dick was greatly pleased.