"Yes, I'm that same, Bowling, only grown a bit since then in stature and likewise in years; for none of us can manage to work a traverse on old Father Time and grow younger," said the other, laughing lightheartedly and showing his white teeth as he stretched out his hand to father in the most cordial way, like a real gentleman, as if he were a friend and fellow-sailor. "I'm very glad to see you again--aye, and looking so hale and hearty, too, old shipmate!" "So am I to see you, sir," rejoined father, resting on his oar, while the two exchanged a good grip of their fists; I also stopping pulling, of course, and grinning in sympathy. "Why, I were only talking about you last pension day to Bill Murphy--You remembers Bill; don't you, sir? He wer' cap'en of the foretop in the _Blazer_ with us, Mr Mordaunt--a little chap with ginger hair." "Oh yes, I recollect Murphy well enough. He was a mad Irishman, always full of fun and mischief," rejoined the other, smiling at the remembrance of some joke in which the chap of whom they spoke had part. "But you must put a handle to my name, Bowling; I'm posted now." "Beg pardon, cap'en, I didn't know it, in course, or wouldn't have forgot my manners," said father, raising his hand in salute; and then, gripping the loom of his oar, he started a long steady stroke towards the pontoon at the foot of the railway jetty, on the Portsea shore, abreast of the old _Victory_; I following suit, of course. "You won't mind an old seaman, sir, 'gratulatin' you, sir, on getting your step so young? Ship my rullocks, why, it do seem but t'other day when you were a mite of a middy along o' me!" "Time flies, my man; and if youth were the only bar to our promotion we'd soon be all admirals of the fleet," said the other, laughing again. "Why, it's more than twenty years ago, Bowling, since we were in the old _Blazer_ together." "Aye, I knows that, Cap'en Mordaunt," replied father, in his dry way; "an' I knows, too, that there's many a youngster o' yer own standing as ain't got further than liftenant yet, sir! It's only the smart officers like yerself that gits promoted." "Well, well, we won't argue about that, Bowling; `kissing,' you know, sometimes `goes by favour,'" said father's old friend, smiling; and then, to turn the current of conversation from this rather personal theme, Captain Mordaunt, as I afterwards found out for myself when I sailed with him, being of a singularly modest and retiring disposition, he abruptly asked, "This your son, eh?" "Yes, sir--Cap'en Mordaunt, I means, sir," replied father. "I've got one darter as is older; but he's my only son." "How old is he now?" "Fifteen years an' ten months," said father, after careful consideration and much counting on his fingers. "He'll be sixteen next April, on `Primrose Day,' as they call it." "Another Tom Bowling, eh?" "Yes, sir," said father. "He's `young Tom,' an' I'm the `old un' now!"