"Keep your pecker up, and if you'll take the advice of an old sailor, I'd recommend you to write to your friends and go home." "Much he knows of my Aunt Matilda!" I said to Tom, as we watched the good-hearted fellow pulling back to the old tub on board of which we had passed through so much.

"If he were acquainted with all the circumstances of the case I don't think he'd advise my going home at all events!" "I'm not quite sure of that, Martin," replied Tom, who was now thoroughly tired of everything connected with the sea, vowing that, after the experience he had gained, he would not go afloat again, to be made "Lord High Admiral of England!" "Well, we'll deliberate about it," said I, as we turned away from the jetty and walked towards the town, where our immediate intention was to enter a coffee-shop and get a substantial breakfast out of the funds which Jorrocks had so thoughtfully provided us with.
Here, Tom's fate was soon decided; for, we had not long been seated in a small restaurant where we had ordered some coffee and bread-and-butter, which were the viands we specially longed for, than an advertisement on the front page of an old copy of the _Times_ caught my eye.
It ran thus:-- "If Tom L---, who ran away from school in company with another boy on the night of November the Fifth and is supposed to have gone to sea, will communicate with his distressed mother, all will be forgiven." "Why, Tom," said I, reading it aloud, with some further particulars describing him, which I have not quoted--"this must refer to you!" "So it does," said he.
"And what will you do ?" I asked him.
"Well, Martin, I don't like to leave you, but then you know my mother must be so anxious, as I told you before, that I think I'd better write to her." I suggested a better course, however, as soon as I saw he wished to go home; and that was, that, as his mother lived not very far from Exeter, he should take the balance of the money we had left after paying for our breakfast, and go off thither by train at once.
This, after some demur, he agreed to; so, as soon as we had finished our meal and discharged the bill, which only took eightpence put of our store, we made our way to the railway station.
A train was luckily just about starting, and Tom getting a ticket for half-price, he and I parted, not meeting again until many days had passed, and then in a very different place! When I realised the fact that Tom was gone, and that I was now left alone in that strange place, where I had never been in my life before, I felt so utterly cast down, that instinctively I made my way to the sea, there seeking that comfort and calm which the mere sight of it, somehow or other, always afforded me.
I got down, I recollect, on the Hoe, and, walking along the esplanade, halted right in front of the Breakwater, whence I could command a view of the harbour, with the men-of-war in the Hamoaze on my right hand, and the Cattwater, where the _Saucy Sall_ was lying, on my left.
I was very melancholy, and after a bit I sat down on an adjacent seat; when, burying my face in my hands, I gave way to tears.
Presently, I was roused by the sound of a man's voice close at hand, as if of some one speaking to me.
I looked up hastily, ashamed of being caught crying.

However, the good- natured, jolly, weather-beaten face I saw looking into mine reassured me.
"Hullo, young cockbird," said the owner of the face--a middle-aged, respectable, nautical-looking sort of man--speaking in a cheery voice, which went to my heart; "what's the row with you, my hearty?
Tell old Sam Pengelly all about it!".