Salters was not an amiable person (He esteemed it his business to keep the boys in order); and the first time Harvey, in fear and trembling, on a still day, managed to shin up to the main-truck (Dan was behind him ready to help), he esteemed it his duty to hang Salters's big sea-boots up there--a sight of shame and derision to the nearest schooner.

With Disko, Harvey took no liberties; not even when the old man dropped direct orders, and treated him, like the rest of the crew, to "Don't you want to do so and so ?" and "Guess you'd better," and so forth.

There was something about the clean-shaven lips and the puckered corners of the eyes that was mightily sobering to young blood.
Disko showed him the meaning of the thumbed and pricked chart, which, he said, laid over any government publication whatsoever; led him, pencil in hand, from berth to berth over the whole string of banks--Le Have, Western, Banquereau, St.Pierre, Green, and Grand--talking "cod" meantime.

Taught him, too, the principle on which the "hog-yoke" was worked.
In this Harvey excelled Dan, for he had inherited a head for figures, and the notion of stealing information from one glimpse of the sullen Bank sun appealed to all his keen wits.

For other sea-matters his age handicapped him.