The idea that the youth could not swim had never entered his mind, for swimming like a fish himself and never remembering when he could not do so, he supposed it was the most ordinary accomplishment, and, as he had said, he merely wished to cool the temper of the one who had set upon him as a butt to be made fun of. “What’s the trouble ashore, my lad?” asked Captain Jasper Crane, who was about to launch the schooner’s yawl to come to the shore when he saw Mark returning. “Oh! nothing to speak of, sir, only I had to stop some funny business one of the boys played on me, and finding he could not swim I leaped in after him.” “Just like you, Master Mark, just like you,” said Captain Crane, following the youth into the cabin. “And I tells yer, lad, you’ll find more hard knocks to put up with among them brass-buttoned gentry ashore than you’d get as a foremast hand on a merchant craft. “My advice to yer would have been to stick to your little craft here and make money; but then you is high-minded and I knows it’s in yer to make a name for yerself, if yer sets about it, only the course are a rough one to sail. Maybe me and one o’ the boys better go ashore with yer next time, for we is some handy with our flukes when we is run afoul of.” Mark laughed heartily, for it came into his mind how he had seen the skipper and his sons run afoul of, as he expressed it, one day in Portland, by a gang of roughs, and had a fair demonstration of how “handy they were with their flukes.” To see him go ashore under an escort amused him greatly, as he pictured the cadet-midshipman being knocked about by the trio of salts from the Kennebec. But he thanked the captain for his offer, and went on with his toilet. Meanwhile the skipper was called upon deck. A boat had come alongside with a middy in command, sent from the man-of-war, to have the skipper of the strange schooner give an account of his seeking an anchorage where he had. Having heard of the trouble Mark had met with ashore, Captain Crane gazed upon the spry young middy with no friendly eye. “Are you the sailing-master of this craft?” asked the midshipman pompously. “I am the mate, very much at your service, young officer.” “Where is the master?” “The capting is down in his cabing; but if you wish to see him I’ll send yer keerd, and maybe he’ll see yer, maybe he won’t.” The face of the youth flushed at this, and he asked sternly: “Is this a yacht on a pleasure cruise, my man?” “Now, see here, my boy, I hain’t your man. I’m my old woman’s man, and nobody else has a claim on me, for I am o’ age.” “Answer my question, sir.” “Yes, it are a yacht on a cruise, but leetle pleasure I’m thinking it will bring her capting by coming into this port.” “I wish the name of your vessel, her owner, and why she is here.”