It all seemed like a dream to Joe.  Countless times he had imagined scenes somewhat similar to this; but here he was right in the midst of it, and already it seemed as though he had known his two companions for years.  French Pete was smiling genially at him across the board.  It really was a villainous countenance, but to Joe it seemed only weather-beaten.  ’Frisco Kid was describing to him, between mouthfuls, the last sou’easter the Dazzler had weathered, and Joe experienced an increasing awe for this boy who had lived so long upon the water and knew so much about it.

The captain, however, drank a glass of wine, and topped it off with a second and a third, and then, a vicious flush lighting his swarthy face, stretched out on top of his blankets, where he soon was snoring loudly.

“Better turn in and get a couple of hours’ sleep,” ’Frisco Kid said kindly, pointing Joe’s bunk out to him.  “We ’ll most likely be up the rest of the night.”

Joe obeyed, but he could not fall asleep so readily as the others.  He lay with his eyes wide open, watching the hands of the alarm-clock that hung in the cabin, and thinking how quickly event had followed event in the last twelve hours.  Only that very morning he had been a school-boy, and now he was a sailor, shipped on the Dazzler and bound he knew not whither.  His fifteen years increased to twenty at the thought of it, and he felt every inch a man—­a sailorman at that.  He wished Charley and Fred could see him now.  Well, they would hear of it soon enough.  He could see them talking it over, and the other boys crowding around.  “Who?” “Oh, Joe Bronson; he ’s gone to sea.  Used to chum with us.”

Joe pictured the scene proudly.  Then he softened at the thought of his mother worrying, but hardened again at the recollection of his father.  Not that his father was not good and kind; but he did not understand boys, Joe thought.  That was where the trouble lay.  Only that morning he had said that the world was n’t a play-ground, and that the boys who thought it was were liable to make sore mistakes and be glad to get home again.  Well, he knew that there was plenty of hard work and rough experience in the world; but he also thought boys had some rights.  He ’d show him he could take care of himself; and, anyway, he could write home after he got settled down to his new life.

CHAPTER IX

ABOARD THE DAZZLER

A skiff grazed the side of the Dazzler softly and interrupted Joe’s reveries.  He wondered why he had not heard the sound of the oars in the rowlocks.  Then two men jumped over the cockpit-rail and came into the cabin.

“Bli’ me, if ’ere they ain’t snoozin’,” said the first of the newcomers, deftly rolling ’Frisco Kid out of his blankets with one hand and reaching for the wine-bottle with the other.

French Pete put his head up on the other side of the centerboard, his eyes heavy with sleep, and made them welcome.