"All right, Bowling, I'm glad your memory is so good," replied Captain Mordaunt, standing on the pontoon and looking down at us, with a smile on his cheery, handsome face. "You will remember, too, that my word was always as good as any bond, and when I say a thing I mean a thing! I'm stopping for a day or two at the Keppel's Head, and if you'll come over there this evening after dinner, or send young Tom, should you like that better than a glass of grog, why, I will give you a letter for him to take on board the _Saint Vincent_ to the commander, who's an old friend of mine like yourself, and we'll have young Tom entered on the books of the training-ship in a brace of shakes!" "Thank you kindly, sir," said father, raising his hand to his cap again in salute as the captain turned to leave us. "You're very good, sir, for to h'interest yourself, sir, in this yere young scamp of a son o' mine, sir!" "Not a bit of it, Bowling, not a bit of it," rejoined the other cheerily, as he chucked father a sovereign for his fare ashore, and told him to be sure to come up to the Keppel's Head on the Hard and see him in the evening for the letter of introduction for me. "It's a shame that such a likely young fellow should not be allowed to follow in his father's footsteps and turn out as brave and handy a sailor as himself. He's a born seaman, every inch of him, Bowling, and a regular chip of the old block!" CHAPTER TWO. "A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK!" "Oh!" exclaimed mother, when an hour or so later father set about explaining the matter of our meeting Captain Mordaunt, and his promise of sending me aboard the _Saint Vincent_ to be trained for the service. "You just go and tell that to the marines! Don't you try on any of your old yarns with me!" "I ain't a-tryin' on nothing, old woman," protested father, after a vain attempt to continue his dinner, bolting a piece of potato, which stuck in his throat and set him coughing. "I'm a-tellin' you the honest truth, Sarah, that I be!" "Well, and suppose it is true," retorted mother, giving him a slap on the back to send the obstructive potato down, "p'raps you'll tell me, Tom Bowling, how Jenny and I are a-going to get along without young Tom? Who's going to look after the birds in the mornin's, I'd like to know-- with twelve dozen fresh canaries a-comin' from Norwich the day arter to- morrow, too?" "Oh, we'll manage all right, mother," put in my sister Jenny, with a merry laugh. "You'll make Tom conceited if you let him think we cannot get along without him!"