My introduction into the cockpit of the _Ajax_ was pretty much that
of every other reefer in his Majesty’s navy. I was, of course, told
that I showed the most brazen presumption in daring to wish to enter
the naval service; that I ought to be a choir boy at St. Paul’s; that
haymaking was my profession by nature, to say nothing of an exchange
of black eyes and bloody noses with every midshipman of my size in the
cockpit. Through all this Giles Vernon was my chief tormentor and best
friend. He proclaimed the fact of my drysalting ancestry, and when I
imprudently reminded him that I was the grandson of a baronet, he gave
me one kick for the drysalter and two for the baronet. He showed me a
battered old cocked hat hung up on a nail in the steerage country.
“Do you see that hat, you young rapscallion?” he asked.