"I've lost a flipper, Jack, you see," said he, sticking out his stump. "I never mind. It was for the sake of Old England; and I have got a pension, and there's Greenwich ready for me when I like to bear up for it. There's still stuff in me, and if I had been wanted, I'd have kept afloat; but as I'm not wanted, I'm going to have a look at some of my kith and kin, on whom I haven't set eyes since the war began. Many of them are gone, I fear. So do you, Jack, come along with me. They will give you a welcome, I know." I told him how sorry I was that I could not go, as I had entered aboard the whaler; but I spent the evening with him, and all the next day; and he came and had a look at the _Drake_, and Captain Carr was very glad to see him, and told him that he wished he had him even now with him. I cannot say how much this meeting with my old friend again lightened my heart; still I felt ashamed that I should have been in a trader, and away from one who had been more to me than a father, while he was nobly fighting the battles of our country. He had bravely served from ship to ship through the whole of the war. He, however, did not utter a word of blame. He only found fault with himself. "I told you once, Jack," said he, "that I ought to have been a master, had it not been for my own ignorance, instead of before the mast; and having missed that, had I not continued too idle to learn, I might have got a boatswain's warrant. I tell you this because, though you are no longer a youngster, you have many years before you, I hope, and may still get the learning which books alone can give you, and without which you must ever remain before the mast." I need not say that he made me promise to find him out on my return. I shall never forget the kindly, fatherly glance the old man gave me as he looked down from the top of the coach which was to take him on his way to the home he had so long left.