"Why, I'm a first-class apprentice, and the captain has rated me as third officer in the ship's books." "Now, Mister Leigh, don't you go on for being bumptious, now, my lad!" replied Jorrocks, laughing heartily at my drawing myself up on my dignity.

"A third officer or `third mate,' as we calls him, has a dog's berth aboard a ship if he doesn't lend his hand to anything and button to the first mate! You needn't go for to really humble yourself afore that Macdougall; I only meant you to purtend like as how you thinks him a regular top-sawyer, and then you'll sail along without a chance of a squall--Mr Ohlsen, the second mate, in charge o' your watch, is an easy-going chap, and you'll get on well enough with him." "All right," I said in response, as if agreeing with his advice; but I formed my own resolution as to how I would treat the Scotsman should he try to bully me unjustly.
He would find no cringe in me, I vowed! The rest of my shipmates, Jorrocks then went on to tell me, were a very jolly set of fellows, forming as good a crew as he'd ever sailed with-- fit for anything, and all able seamen "of the proper sort." Haxell, the carpenter, he said, was a quiet, steady-going, solemn sort of man, with no nonsense about him, who kept himself to himself; while Sails, the sail-maker, whom I have omitted mentioning in his proper place as one of the officers ranking after the boatswain, was a cheery chap, who could sing a good song on Saturday night in the fo'c's'le; but, the life of the crew, Jorrocks said, was Pat Doolan, the cook, an Irishman, as his name would imply.

He was always ready to crack a joke and "carry on" when there was any skylarking about, besides willing to lend a hand at any time on a pinch.

Jorrocks told me "to mind and be good friends with Pat," if it were only for the sake of the pannikin of hot coffee which it was in his power to dispense in the early morning when turning out on watch in the cold.
"Ah, you were not born yesterday, Jorrocks!" I said, when he imparted this valuable bit of information to me, as one of the state secrets of the fo'c's'le.
"No, Mister Leigh," he answered, with a meaning wink; "I've not been to sea, twenty year more or less, for nothing, I tell you." The steward--to complete the list of those on board--was a flabby half- and-half sort of Welshman, hailing from Cardiff but brought up in London; and, as he was a close ally of the first mate, I need hardly say he was no favourite either of my friend Jorrocks, or with the crew generally--all the hands thinking that he skimped the provisions when serving them out, in deference to Mr Macdougall's prejudices in the way of stinginess! The _Esmeralda_, therefore, carried twenty-seven souls in all of living freight, including the skipper and my valuable self, besides her thousand tons of coal or so of cargo; we on board representing a little world within ourselves, with our interests identical so long as the voyage lasted.
While Jorrocks and I were talking in the waist of the ship to leeward, I observed the first mate, Mr Macdougall--who had the forenoon watch, and was in charge of the vessel for the time--approach close to the break of the poop, and stop in his walk up and down the deck once or twice, as if he were on the point of hailing us to know what we were palavering about; but something seemed to change his intention, so he refrained from calling out, as I expected, although he glowered down on Jorrocks and I, with a frown on his freckly sandy-haired face, "as if he could eat us both up without salt," as the boatswain said, on my pointing out the mate's proximity.
I believe Mr Macdougall took a dislike to me from the first; and the skipper's apparent favour did not subsequently tend to make him appreciate me any the better, I could see later on.
That very day, shortly before noon, when Captain Billings came out of his cabin with his sextant, and found me all ready for him with mine, in obedience to his order, I heard Mr Macdougall utter a covert sneer behind the skipper's back respecting me.
"Hoot, mon," he said aside to Ohlsen, the second mate--"Old son of a gun" as the men used to call him, making a sort of pun on his name--"the old man's setting up as dominie to teach that bairn how to tak' a sight, you ken; did you ever see the like?
These be braw times when gentlefolk come to sea for schoolin', and ship cap'ens have to tak' to teachin' 'em!" Ohlsen didn't reply to this save by a grunt, which might have meant anything, but I was certain Macdougall was trying to turn me into ridicule.
Captain Billings, however, did not overhear the remark; and proceeded to test my accuracy with the sextant, making me take the angle of the sun and that of the distant land on the port bow.

He was delighted when, afterwards, I had worked out my calculations, based on the sight taken of the sun's altitude, and, deducting the difference of the ship's mean time from that observed, found out that our true position on the chart was very nearly 50 degrees 55 minutes 20 seconds North and 4 degrees 50 minutes 55 seconds West, or about ten miles to the south-west of Hartland Point on the Devonshire coast.