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“MY FATHER TALKED TO MY MOTHER.”

“Of the Blue, I think it is,” said my father.

“The Red is cock of the walk,” said I, who had been listening to this conversation with much interest.

Well, it ended, after many talks, in my mother agreeing with my father that one voyage could do me no harm, and that if I returned as eager for the sea life as I now was, it might prove as good a calling for me as any other vocation that could be named. So after making certain inquiries, my father one day took me to London with him, to call upon a shipowner who lived close by Fenchurch Street. He had five vessels, three of them large ships, of which two had formerly been Indiamen, and the others were barques. They were all regular traders to Australia: that is to say, to the different ports of that colony, and one or more of them were always to be found in the East India Docks discharging the wool with which they returned home full of, or taking in merchandise for the outward passage.

The shipowner, Mr. Duncan, was a large, fat, cheerful man, “with a very knowing eye, and supposed to be already worth, my dear, about a million and a half,” as I afterwards heard my father tell my mother. We passed through an office full of clerks into a little back room, where we were received by Mr. Duncan, who seemed delighted to make our acquaintance. He patted me on the head, said that he was always fond of boys whose hair curled, declared that he could not remember ever having set eyes on a more likely sailorly-looking lad, promised me that I should become the captain of a ship if I worked hard, and then he and my father went to business.