When he had bound the bundle in stout wrapping-paper he contemplated it with satisfaction.  Then he went over to his desk and took from a small inner compartment his savings for some months, which amounted to several dollars.  This sum he had been keeping for the Fourth of July, but he thrust it into his pocket with hardly a regret.  Then he pulled a writing-pad over to him, sat down and wrote: 

  Don’t look for me.  I am a failure and I am
  going away to sea.  Don’t worry about me.  I
  am all right and able to take care of myself. 
  I shall come back some day, and then you will
  all be proud of me.  Good-by, papa, and mama,
  and Bessie. 
                                        JOE.

This he left lying on his desk where it could easily be seen.  He tucked the bundle under his arm, and, with a last farewell look at the room, stole out.

PART II

CHAPTER VIII

’FRISCO KID AND THE NEW BOY

’Frisco Kid was discontented—­discontented and disgusted.  This would have seemed impossible to the boys who fished from the dock above and envied him greatly.  True, they wore cleaner and better clothes, and were blessed with fathers and mothers; but his was the free floating life of the bay, the domain of moving adventure, and the companionship of men—­theirs the rigid discipline and dreary sameness of home life.  They did not dream that ’Frisco Kid ever looked up at them from the cockpit of the Dazzler and in turn envied them just those things which sometimes were the most distasteful to them and from which they suffered to repletion.  Just as the romance of adventure sang its siren song in their ears and whispered vague messages of strange lands and lusty deeds, so the delicious mysteries of home enticed ’Frisco Kid’s roving fancies, and his brightest day-dreams were of the thing’s he knew not—­brothers, sisters, a father’s counsel, a mother’s kiss.

He frowned, got up from where he had been sunning himself on top of the Dazzler’s cabin, and kicked off his heavy rubber boots.  Then he stretched himself on the narrow side-deck and dangled his feet in the cool salt water.

“Now that ’s freedom,” thought the boys who watched him.  Besides, those long sea-boots, reaching to the hips and buckled to the leather strap about the waist, held a strange and wonderful fascination for them.  They did not know that ’Frisco Kid did not possess such things as shoes—­that the boots were an old pair of Pete Le Maire’s and were three sizes too large for him.  Nor could they guess how uncomfortable they were to wear on a hot summer day.

The cause of ’Frisco Kid’s discontent was those very boys who sat on the string-piece and admired him; but his disgust was the result of quite another event.  The Dazzler was short one in its crew, and he had to do more work than was justly his share.  He did not mind the cooking, nor the washing down of the decks and the pumping; but when it came to the paint-scrubbing and dishwashing he rebelled.  He felt that he had earned the right to be exempt from such scullion work.  That was all the green boys were fit for, while he could make or take in sail, lift anchor, steer, and make landings.