The man’s tears were flowing; he was weak, poor fellow, and wanting in the item of well-bred reticence.  Lewis fed one patient, trimmed the other’s bed, put on a woollen helmet, sou’-wester, two pairs of gloves, and the trusty Russian coat; then he was slung into the boat like a bundle of clothes; landed springily on a thole, and departed over seas not much bigger than an ordinary two-storey house.  It was quite moderate weather, and the sprightly young savant had lost that feeling which makes you try to double yourself into knots when you watch a wave gradually shutting away the outer world and preparing to fold its livid gloom about you.  “What would the Cowes fellows say to this, I wonder?” thought the irreverent young pioneer.  Then he chuckled over the thought of the reckless Seadogs who march in nautical raiment on the pier.  Those wild, rollicking Seadogs!  How the North Sea men would envy them and their dower of dauntlessness!  The Seadog takes his frugal lunch at the club; he begins with a sole, and no doubt he casts a patronizing thought towards the other Seadogs who trawled for the delicate fish.  They are not so like seamen in appearance as is the Cowes Seadog; they do not wear shiny buttons; the polish on their boots is scarcely brilliant; they wear unclean jumpers, and flannel trousers fit to make an aesthetic Seadog faint with emotion of various sorts.  No! they are not pattern Seadogs at all—­those North Sea workers.  Would that they could learn a lesson from the hardy Cowes Rover.  Well, the Rover tries a cutlet after his fish, then he has cheese and a grape or two, and he tops up his frugal meal with a pint of British Imperial.  A shilling cigar brings his lunch up to just sixteen shillings—­as much as a North Sea amateur could earn in a week of luck—­and then he prepares to face the terrors of the Deep.  Does he tremble?  Do the thoughts of the Past arise in his soul?  Nay, the Seadog of Cowes is no man to be the prey of womanish tremors; he goes gaily like a true Mariner to confront the elements.  The boat is ready, and four gallant salts are resting on their oars; the Seadog steps recklessly on board and looks at the weather.  Ha! there is a sea of at least two inches high running, and that frail boat must traverse that wild space.  No matter!  The man who would blench at even two hundred yards of water, with waves even three inches high is totally, unworthy of the name of a British Seadog!  One thought of friends and mother dear; one last look at the Club where that sole was served, and then, with all the ferocious determination of his conquering race, the Seadog bids the men give way.  It is an awful sight!  Four strokes, and the bow man receives as nearly as possible half a pint of water on his jersey!  Steady!  No shirking, my sons of the sea-kings.  Twenty strokes more—­the peril is past; and the Seadog bounds on to the deck of his stout vessel.  He is saved.  A basket with a turbot is in the stern-sheets; that turbot will form part of the Seadog’s humble evening meal.  It cost a guinea, and the North Sea amateurs, who received two shillings of that amount, would doubtless rejoice could they know that they risked their lives in a tearing August gale to provide for the wants of a brother Seadog.