There are three little midshipmen going their first voyage; one of them, who was to join another ship, is dying of a decline (poor boy!), and has not been out of his hammock for a fortnight; nothing can equal the care that is taken of him.
One of the others is a very little fellow called Douglas, and he is as like your as it is possible to be, only a little shorter. I draw no inferences, but everybody calls him ‘a pretty boy.’ He is going to act Miss Hardcastle, in ‘She Stoops to Conquer.’ He is full of spirits, and insisted on being put into a watch long before the first lieutenant thought of it; but in the night watches some of the older ones always send him off to bed. The night of the storm, George looked out on deck, and there he saw little Douglas, in his rough Flushing jacket and trousers, and oil-skin hat, trying to stand steady on deck, without shoes or stockings, as all the officers are in that sort of weather, and his little feet looked so white and new amongst those weatherbeaten, brown sailors. Your mother would be quite satisfied with the way in which those young ones are treated.
One of the lieutenants has them into his cabin to read every day, and the old ones are always teaching them something either at the wheel or at the sextants, and they are rather spoiled than bullied.
One of the passengers began to bully little Douglas at first, but when the boy found out he was supported by his own officers he turned upon the man one day and said, ‘I tell you what, Mr. V, if you hit me once more, I give you notice I shall hit you again’ (Mr. V is six feet high), ‘and what is more, when we cross the line I shall pay you off!’ They say he looked so funny with his fist doubled up at the man,—who never says a word to him now.