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The men forrard found time and opportunity to wash out their miserable bits of duds, and with the cunning of seamen managed to dry them too in the bursts of blazing sunshine, but never a bit of washing was done by any of the boys, while clothes that were hardly soiled but had got thoroughly wet, hung in the house on all the nails, adding another flavour to the many odours. At last Frank, in despair of knowing what to do with all his wet and filthy clothing, took a short way with them: he flung a couple of armfuls overboard at night while nobody was looking. Quite unknown to him, Harry Carter had been doing the same, and for the same reason, because there was no one whose business it was to tell them or show them different.

Frank had now been a month on board, for the ship was a very slow one, and so, although she had enjoyed fair weather, it had taken her all that time to get down to the line. And had he been able to indulge in retrospect he would have seen what an immense change had taken place in himself, and how very far removed he was from the boy who came on board the Sealark in Liverpool. To say that he was enjoying the life would not be quite true, yet he was by no means miserable, having that happy temperament which makes the best of things, and besides, he was rather proud of his accomplishments. He was fairly chummy with Johnson his watch mate, who had really never imposed upon him, and the two had many a yarn together about their previous lives and ambitions. They were much happier than the other two boys, for Williams was a cad, and Harry, poor chap, had no backbone, so he just degenerated into a little loafer who skulked out of everything he could, and made the only man who tried to befriend him, the second mate, so disgusted with him that he gave up trying to teach him. Frank, on the contrary, was one of the willing ones, naturally energetic and industrious, and besides, being quite a shrewd lad, he soon noticed that everything came easier when he went at it with a will.