"
"Yes, sir," I said, trying perversely to conceal my joy.
"And as for Captain Whidden," my father added, "you'll find he cuts a very
different figure aboard ship from that he shows in our drawing-room."
Then a smile twinkled through his severity, and he laid his hand firmly on
my shoulder.
"Son, you have my permission ungrudgingly given. There was a time--well,
your grandfather didn't see things as I did."
"But some day," I cried, "I'll have a counting-house of my own--
some day--"
My father laughed kindly, and I, taken aback, blushed at my own eagerness.
"Anyway," I persisted, "Roger Hamlin is to go as supercargo."
"Roger--as supercargo?" exclaimed a low voice.
I turned and saw that my sister stood in the door.
"Where--when is he going?"
"To Canton on the Island Princess! And so am I," I cried.
"Oh!" she said. And she stood there, silent and a little pale.
"You'll not see much of Roger," my father remarked to me, still smiling. He
had a way of enjoying a quiet joke at my expense, to him the more pleasing
because I never was quite sure just wherein the humor lay.
"But I'm going," I cried. "I'm going--I'm going--I'm going!"
"At the end of the voyage," said my father, "we'll find out whether you
still wish to follow the sea.
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