He smacked a hand down on the boy's shoulder.

"Broke him, sir!--broke him back to a sloop o war!--old Ding-dong,
the damdest, darndest, don't-care-a-cursest old sea-dog as ever set
his teeth in a French line o battle ship, and wouldn't let go, though
they fired double-shotted broadsides down his throat."

"But why did they break him?" gasped the boy. "It doesn't sound like
Nelson."

The other smacked his long nose with a finger mysteriously.

"I don't know what you mean," said the boy, short and sharp.

"Ah, and just as well you don't," replied the other loftily. "Some
day, Sonny, you'll know all there is to know and a leetle bit more--same
as me. Plenty time first though. If you've done suckin it's more'n
you look."

He began to march again.

"Yes, sir: he'd ha hoisted his broad pendant afore this, would old
Ding-dong, pit-boy and powder-monkey and all, only for that. And as
I'd ha gone h'up with him as he went h'up, so I goes down with him
when he goes down. I know'd old Ding-dong. He was the man for me. Talk
o fightin!--Dicky Keats, Ned Berry, the Honourayble Blackwood: good
men all and gluttons at it!--but for the real old style stuff,
ammer-and-tongs, fight to a finish, takin punishment and givin it,
there ain't a seaman afloat as'll touch our old man."