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“I’m a very strong boy—and I allus thought I’d like to be a sailor. Won’t you take me now, sir, and let me fight the British?”

The quartermaster grinned broadly at this, but Paul Jones did not smile.

“What is your name, my lad?—and have you parents?”

“My name’s Danny Dixon, sir, and I ain’t got any father or mother or brothers or sisters; and I’d ruther be a sailor, sir, nor anything.”

Paul Jones looked hard at the boy, and then turned to the quartermaster.

“We’ll see if his story is true, and if it is—why, we shall have use for powder boys on this ship, and we might do worse than take this lad.”

“In course, sir,” responded Green. “I’ll find out something about him, and I’m thinkin’ he’d make a good, strong powder monkey and maybe he’s old enough to be helper to the jack-o’-the-dust.”

Danny’s eyes gleamed.

“I’ll go ashore now, sir, and bring you back some one to prove who I am,” he cried eagerly; and Paul Jones had to step hurriedly out of the boat to keep from being carried back to the dock, so keen was the boy to put off. And in two hours he was back again on the Alfred, and regularly entered on the ship’s books.