"I believe I could do it myself.

It always looks so easy.

But no; won't do," he said firmly, as he drew himself up and tried to look stern and tall and big, an impossibility with a man of five feet two inches in height, and whose physique had always been against his advance in the profession.

For as a short energetic little man he might have gained promotion; as a little fat rosy fellow the Lords of the Admiralty thought not; and so, after endless disappointments regarding better things, he had been appointed commander of the little _White Hawk_, and sent to cruise off the south coast and about the Channel, to catch the smugglers who were always too clever to be caught.
"No," he said shortly, as he drew himself up; "won't do, Raystoke, though you and I are condemned to live in this miserable little cutter, and on a contemptible kind of duty, we must not forget that we are officers and gentlemen in His Majesty's service.

Milking cows won't do.
No; we must draw the line at milking cows.