Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/64

48 He said it with such confidence that this must surely be Billy’s one ambition, that the  boy made haste to correct him.

“I’m not going to be a sailor ever,” he said. “I’m going into business and—and make a pile of money.”

Captain Saulsby did not answer at once, for he was staring out beyond the point where  one of the big battleships had chanced to come  close in and was steaming by at full speed. Billy could see the tremendous wave that surged up before her bow; he watched the  cloud of drifting smoke that poured from her  funnels and he had suddenly a vision of what  gigantic power must drive her so swiftly  through the sea. It gave him a queer thrill, unlike anything that he had ever felt before,  and, oddly enough, seemed to fill him with a  sudden doubt as to the wisdom of his choice  of a career. Buying and selling and making money might after all prove a dull occupation. Were there after all bigger things than Big Business? Such a question had never occurred to him before.

“Now,” said the Captain, interrupting his reverie, “you just tell your aunt to come down