The girl laughed outright. 'Don't get angry. I'm only telling you for your own good.'
'Orl right!' he retorted with asperity, disengaging his arm from hers; 'if I ain't good enuf for yer we'd best chuck the 'ole show, an' you can go back to yer Mister Parkin--'im wot smells o' 'air-oil!'
'Don't be silly, stupid!' she chided, slipping her arm through his again and squeezing it affectionately. 'You know I don't like him a little bit.'
'You carn't like me, any'ow,' he remarked, bitterly offended.
'Leastways, if yer did yer wouldn't go talkin' the same as yer do.'
'Oh! don't I, indeed? Think I'd go walking out with you, and let you--er--behave as you do, if I wasn't fond of you?'
'Let's 'ave a kiss now,' Pincher suggested, drawing a little closer.
Emmeline pulled back. 'Go away, you naughty boy!' she laughed, blushing becomingly. 'Not in public, anyhow.'
'Yer knows I loves yer, Hemmeline, don't yer?' Pincher asked.
'M'yes,' she answered softly. 'If you didn't I don't suppose you'd carry on the way you do. But plenty of boys have said the same thing before, so you're not the only one--no, not by a long chalk.'
'D' you love me, Hemmeline?' Pincher wanted to know.
'Ah,' she said archly, 'now you're asking.'
'Well,' she answered coyly, looking up at him through her long eyelashes, 'just a little, perhaps, when you're a good boy. That's why I want to tell you how to talk properly,' she went on to explain. 'I want you to get on--see?'
'Oh!' said Pincher, slightly mollified, but not knowing in the least how a correct pronunciation would make him rise in his profession, 'that's the lay, is it?'
By the end of February Martin had passed his examination in gunnery without much difficulty, and was half-way through his seamanship course. Here, under the guidance of Petty Officer Bartlett, he and several others like him were taught the rudiments of boat-work under oars and sail, the use of the compass and the helm, the rule of the road at sea, heaving the lead, knotting and splicing, signalling, and a hundred and one other things. The practical boat-work Pincher enjoyed, and soon got into; while the knots and splices, thanks to private tuition in his spare time from Joshua Billings, were comparatively easy to master. The more theoretical part of the business, however, was a little more difficult to absorb.