A knock came to the door. Clare said, “Come in.” The quartermaster entered. Instead of sir Harry, he saw the miserable stowaway, seated in the captain’s own chair. He swore at him, and ordered him out, prepared to give him a kick as he passed. “Out with you!” he cried. “Go for’ard. Tell the bo’s’n to look out a rope’s end. I’ll be after you.” “The captain told me to sit here,” answered Clare, and sat. The officer looked closer at him, begged his pardon, saluted, and withdrew. The father heard, and said to himself, “The boy is a gentleman: he knows where to take his orders.” He called him into the inner cabin, and there washed him from head to foot, rejoicing to find under his rags a skin as clean as his own. “Now what are we to do for clothes, Clare?” said sir Harry. “Perhaps somebody would lend me some,” answered Clare. “Mayn’t I be your cabin-boy, father? You will let me be a sailor, won’t you, and sail always with you?” “You shall be a sailor, my boy,” answered sir Harry, “and sail with me as long as God pleases. You know to obey orders!” “I will obey the cook if you tell me, father.” “You shall obey nobody but myself,” returned sir Harry; “--and the lord high admiral,” he added, with a glance upward, and a smile like his son’s. For that day Clare kept to the captain’s state-room; the next, he went on deck in a midshipman’s uniform, which he wore like a gentleman that could obey orders. Chapter LXVI. THE END OF CLARE SKYMER’S BOYHOOD. His father had a hammock slung for him in the state-room; he could not be parted from him even when they slept. One night sir Harry, lying awake, heard a movement in the state-room, and got up. It was a still, star-lit night. The frigate was dreaming away northward with all sail set. Through the windows shone the level stars. From a beam above hung a dim lamp. He could see no one. He went to the hammock. There was no boy in it. Then he spied him, kneeling under the stern-windows, with his head down. “Anything the matter, Clare?” he asked. “No, father.” “What are you doing?” “Trying to say _Thank you for my father!_” “Oh, thank him, thank him, my boy!” returned sir Harry. “Thank him with all your heart. He will give us _her_ some day!” “Yes, father, he will!” responded Clare. His father knelt beside him, but neither said word that the other heard.