The salt water stung them unpleasantly, but when they were ripe Dan treated them with Disko's razor, and assured Harvey that now he was a "blooded Banker"; the affliction of gurry-sores being the mark of the caste that claimed him.
Since he was a boy and very busy, he did not bother his head with too much thinking.

He was exceedingly sorry for his mother, and often longed to see her and above all to tell her of his wonderful new life, and how brilliantly he was acquitting himself in it.

Otherwise he preferred not to wonder too much how she was bearing the shock of his supposed death.

But one day, as he stood on the fo'c'sle ladder, guying the cook, who had accused him and Dan of hooking fried pies, it occurred to him that this was a vast improvement on being snubbed by strangers in the smoking-room of a hired liner.
He was a recognised part of the scheme of things on the "We're Here"; had his place at the table and among the bunks; and could hold his own in the long talks on stormy days, when the others were always ready to listen to what they called his "fairy-tales" of his life ashore.

It did not take him more than two days and a quarter to feel that if he spoke of his own life--it seemed very far away--no one except Dan (and even Dan's belief was sorely tried) credited him.