And I must say I think so too. You know that when you have
sea-captains of your acquaintance here, you always send the maid off
to bed and smoke in the kitchen."

"Ay, ay, my dear, I don't want to turn your room into a fo'castle.
There is reason in all things. I suppose you don't smoke, Master
Cyril?"

"No, Captain Dave, I have never so much as thought of such a thing.
In France it is the fashion to take snuff, but the habit seemed to me
a useless one, and I don't think that I should ever have taken to
it."

"I wonder," Captain Dave said, after they had talked for some time,
"that after living in sight of the sea for so long your thoughts
never turned that way."

"I cannot say that I have never thought of it," Cyril said. "I have
thought that I should greatly like to take foreign voyages, but I
should not have cared to go as a ship's boy, and to live with men so
ignorant that they could not even write their own names. My thoughts
have turned rather to the Army; and when I get older I think of
entering some foreign service, either that of Sweden or of one of the
Protestant German princes. I could obtain introductions through which
I might enter as a cadet, or gentleman volunteer. I have learnt
German, and though I cannot speak it as I can French or English, I
know enough to make my way in it."

"Can you use your sword, Cyril?" Nellie Dowsett asked.