The purser had arranged for the Bunker family at a side table where they
could be as retired as though they were at home. There were not many
other children aboard, and the purser liked children anyway. So between
his good offices and that of the colored stewards, the Bunkers were well
provided for.

Even the captain--a big, bold-looking man with a gray mustache and lots
of glittering buttons on his blue coat--stopped at the Bunker table to
ask about Mun Bun.

"So that is the fellow I was going to put about my ship for and go back
to Boston to see if he had been left on the dock!" he said very gruffly,
but smiling with his eyes at Mun Bun, who smiled back. "He looks like
too big a boy to make such a disturbance on a man's ship."

"Oh, I don't think, Captain Briggs, he will do it again," said Mother
Bunker.

"I dess wanted to sleep," murmured Mun Bun, holding up his spoon.

"Next time you want your watch below," said Captain Briggs, shaking his
head, "you report to me first. Do you hear?"

"Yes, Ma'am," said Mun Bun, quite sure that he had said the right thing
although they all laughed at him.

Mother Bunker kept the little fellow close to her thereafter; but Vi and
Laddie followed the two older children out on deck. There was a
comfortably filled passenger list on the _Kammerboy_; but the wind was
rather heavy that afternoon and many of them remained in the cabins. But