"
"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.
"Not to say afraid," answered Andrew, deferentially. "We knew our
danger--two men alone in the leaky, broken brig--but then we could be no
worse off than we were before; and as for the others--"
"They got their deserts," said Mr. Maurice.
"The poor fellows left us in such a hurry that they took hardly any water
or biscuit; and at the worst our fate could not be so bad as theirs, under
the hot sun in those salt seas."
"Well, well!" said Mr.
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