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Four or five midshipmen hung about the poop, but they seemed too busy with their thoughts, now that we were in the actual throes of leave-taking, and had started in earnest upon our long voyage, to favour me with their glances and grins.

The river was full of life—of barges and wherries, of dark-winged colliers, swarming along under full breasts of sail; of Thames steamers cutting through the sparkling grey waters with knife-like stems; of ships in tow like ourselves, bound up or down; of huge majestic metal fabrics, gliding to their homes in the docks after days of thunderous passage through the great oceans, or floating regally past us on the way to the distant west or far more distant east.

I know not how long I had thus stood staring, when a big, broad-shouldered young fellow, with a face like a prize-fighter’s, yet of a kindly expression, stepped up to me, and said, in a gruff, deep-sea note—

“Well, youngster, and who are you?”

“I am Master Rockafellar, sir,” I answered.

“That’s our livery you’ve got on,” said he; “you’re one of the midshipmen, I suppose?”