“You’ll larn, my fightin’-cock,” added Tom with a cunning smile. “What would you have done if Spriggs had struck you on the head with a tin pan?” “He wouldn’t have done that to Tom Longstone, nor any other man board this ‘guardo.’” “Perhaps not; but suppose he had?” “I should have knocked him over, just as you did, my spunky one.” “But then you would have gone into a fight.” “Not I, my lad. I should have sheered off as soon as I had a done it; and left the ship’s corporals to take care of him, if he wasn’t satisfied. I might have cut down his hammock arter he turned in, or dropped a belayin’-pin on his toes, or something of that sort; but I shouldn’t get up a fight with him. The fact is, my crank little one, an ill-tempered fellow is sarved out so many ways, board a man-o’-war, that he soon larns to mind his own business.” “Well, I dare say I shall soon learn the ways of my new shipmates; but I don’t half like the fashion of hitting a fellow in the dark.” “You can’t fight it out board the ship, and you won’t stand it to be bullied by a flunky. As to hitting ’im in the dark, my little breezer, that’s all in your eye. Your flunky knows who does it, and so does every man in the ship. That’s our way of sarvin’ ’im out.” “Very likely I shall get used to it in a short time: at any rate, I mean to do my duty faithfully, obey orders, and keep up to the discipline of the ship.” “That’s right, my jolly bantam: that’s the way to get along in the navy.” Tom Longstone was a veteran in the navy, and knew every rope in the ship, as well as every quirk in its discipline, and was thoroughly posted in all the superstitions and traditions of the service. For some reason or other,--perhaps because he had displayed the spirit of a man,--the old salt was strongly prejudiced in Jack’s favor at the first interview, and proceeded, in due form, to take him under his protection. Tom pumped him dry in regard to his parents, his native place, his antecedents upon the sea and the land. He examined him in seamanship, inquired carefully into his moral and religious principles,--as carefully as though Jack had been a candidate for the situation of chaplain instead of ordinary seaman,--and was particularly nice in his inquiries into the incipient hero’s patriotism. “You see, my jolly little clipper, I believe in two things: one of ’em is the Bible, and t’other the ’Meriken flag. I never throwed a vote in my life, and never had nothin’ to do with politics; but the man that says anything agin the ’Meriken flag, why, smash my cutwater, but he’s my enemy! Them’s my sentiments, Jack. I haven’t got no other creed, in politics or religion. Stand by the Bible and the ’Meriken flag, my hearty, and it’ll be all right with you in this world and t’other one too. Steady! there’s the boatswain’s whistle piping to supper. Here, my jolly biscuit-nibbler, stow your little carcass in here, and I’ll see that the sharks don’t gnaw your walking-timbers off.”