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 emphatic advice, after which he hustled him off to the galley, where he was placed under the wing of Barnes, the ship's cook.

"Well, and what have they sent to plague the life out of me now?" Barnes asked in a high, squeaky voice. If Dave had not been trying hard to make a good impression on every one he might have laughed, for Barnes had the most comical face he had ever seen. In reality he was good-natured enough, but for some reason he always tried to give the impression that he was cranky and unapproachable, perhaps because people had been taking advantage of his amiability for forty years at sea. His fat cheeks were red, and his eyebrows stood out like two white bushes. In spite of the greeting, Dave liked Barnes instinctively on sight, and grew to like him still more in the course of time; and he is a lucky person who makes a friend of the cook afloat.

"I 've come to help you," the boy said. "So far, I only know how to peel potatoes, though."