"No"--Klondyke felt he ought to have known that. "Well, it would have saved mine a deal of disappointment," he said cheerfully, "if she had never had such a son. I'm her great sorrow. But if you had had a mother it would have been another story. You'd have been a regular mother's boy." Sailor wasn't sure. XIX Klondyke was ten months an ordinary seaman aboard the _Margaret Carey_. In that time the old tub, which could not have been so crazy as she seemed to the experts of the forecastle, went around the Pacific as far as Brisbane, thence to Durban, thence again to California. Meanwhile, friendship ripened. It was a great thing for Sailor to have the countenance of such a man as Klondyke. He knew so much more about the world than Sailor did, also he was a real friend and protector; and, when they went ashore together in strange places, as they often did, he had a wonderful knack of making himself respected. It was not that Klondyke wore frills. In most of the places in which they found themselves a knife in the ribs would have done his business out of hand had that been the case. It was simply that he knew his way and could talk to every man in his own language, and every woman, too, if it came to that. Whether it was a Frisco hash-slinger or a refined bar-lady along the seaboard made no difference to Klondyke. It was true that he always looked as if he had bought the earth at five per cent. discount for cash and carried the title deeds in his pocket, but he had such a way with him that from Vancouver to Sydney and back again nobody seemed to think the worse of him for it. However, the day came all too soon when a tragic blow fell on Sailor. The ship put in at Honolulu one fine morning, and as soon as Klondyke went ashore he picked up a substitute for himself on the waterfront, whom the Old Man was willing to accept for the rest of his term. Klondyke then broke the news to Sailor that he had just taken a fancy to walk across Asia. It was a heavy blow. Sailor was very near tears, although he was growing in manhood every week. "It's no use asking you to come with me," said Klondyke. "We shouldn't have enough brass to go round. Besides, now the _wanderlust_ is on me there is no saying where I'll get to. I'm very likely to be sawed up for firewood in the middle of Tibet." Sailor knew that Klondyke wanted to make the journey alone. Partly to soften the blow and partly as an impulse of friendship, he gave the boy his Bible and also his wonderful fur cap with flaps for the nose and ears. "Stick to the reading and writing, old friend," were the final words of this immortal. "That's your line of country. It'll pay you in the end. You'll get no good out of the sea. If you are wise, whenever you touch the port of London, you'll give a miss to this old tub. A life on the ocean wave is never going to be the least use to you."