Jack, my lad, I wish you were going to sail with me." "So do I," said Jack.
"He's my only boy, captain," said Mrs.Harding.

"I couldn't part with him." "I don't blame you, ma'am, not a particle; though there's the making of a sailor in Jack." "If he went away, he'd never come back," said Rachel, lugubriously.
"I don't know about that, ma'am.

I've been a sailor, man and boy, forty years, and here I am, well and hearty to-day." "The captain is about your age, isn't he, Aunt Rachel ?" said Jack, maliciously.
"I'm only thirty-nine," said Rachel, sharply.
"Then I must have been under a mistake all my life," said the cooper to himself.

"Rachel's forty-seven, if she's a day." This remark he prudently kept to himself, or a fit of hysterics would probably have been the result.
"I wouldn't have taken you for a day over thirty-five, ma'am," said the captain, gallantly.
Rachel actually smiled, but mildly disclaimed the compliment.
"If it hadn't been for my trials and troubles," she said, "I might have looked younger; but they are only to be expected.

It's the common lot." "Is it ?" said the captain.