“I am glad to meet you, sir,” the captain said, shaking hands with Mr. Embleton. “Every sailor knows you by reputation as being one of Lord Cochrane’s officers. It will be a pleasure to me to do all I can for your son.” “You will find him very different to most of your apprentices, Pinder. He has had the advantage of his father’s teaching, and, theoretically at any rate, he is already well up in his work. When I tell you that he can take a lunar, or an observation from a star, you may imagine that he will not require much teaching in navigation.” “I am glad indeed to hear it, Mr. Hewson—heartily glad; there ought to be two men on board a ship who can do that, for there is never any saying what might happen if there is only one. It has made me anxious many a time, when we had a bad spell of weather, as to how the _Tiger_ would get on if I happened to be washed overboard by a sea or killed by a falling spar. Well, Master Embleton, I can see that I shall have no difficulty in making a first-rate sailor of you. Have you come to stay?” “Yes, sir. My father thought it would be good for me to be on board from the time the fitting-out began.” “Quite right, lad. You will then learn as much in a fortnight as you would in a year at sea. I always make a point of being here myself, and my first officer wouldn’t allow anything to prevent his seeing that everything was right from first to last. But I don’t think that you will be able to sleep on board for the next fortnight.” “Of course not,” Mr. Embleton said. “I intend to take a lodging for him as close to the dock-gate as I can. Perhaps you may know of a tidy place.” “He can’t do better than lodge with us,” the captain said. “Mr. Staines and I always put up at the same place. We give them notice when we are going to begin to fit out, and they keep the rooms for us. We both slept there last night. The house is kept by a nice clean woman, the widow of a skipper who was lost with his craft about ten years ago. I have no doubt she can put the lad up too, and he can mess with us. I will go round with him myself; till we get the shrouds up, one is quite enough to look after the riggers.” “I thank you very much, captain. That will be in all respects more pleasant for the boy than lodging by himself.” The matter was speedily arranged. Mr. Embleton then took Stephen to a clothing shop and bought him two suits of rough canvas. “You will find it dirty work, Steve. There is no keeping free of the tar. By the way, Captain Pinder, I have not ordered Steve’s outfit yet, for I know that on some lines the apprentices dress like midshipmen, on others they don’t; so I put it off until I saw you.”