Jacques laughed good-temperedly.  “There would be nothing to be ashamed of.  We are not like you cold English!  A Frenchman laughs and sings when he is pleased, and cries when he is sorry.  Why shouldn’t he?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you why,” Ralph replied, “only we don’t do it.  I don’t say I shouldn’t halloo out if I were hurt very much, though I should try my best not to; but I feel sure I shouldn’t cry like a great baby.  Why, what would be the good of it?”

Jacques shrugged his shoulders.  “People are different,” he said.  “A man is not a coward because he cries.  I have seen two boys fighting and pulling each other’s hair and crying all the time, but they fought on.  They did not cry because they were afraid.”

“Pulling each other’s hair!” Ralph repeated contemptuously.  “They ought to have been ashamed of themselves, both of them.  I don’t call that fighting at all.  I should call it disgusting.  Why, in England even girls would hardly pull each other’s hair.  I have seen two or three fights between fishwomen in Dover, and even they did not go on like that.  If that’s the way French boys fight, no wonder our soldiers and sailors—­” But here it struck Ralph that the remark he was about to make would be altogether out of place under present circumstances.  He was therefore seized with an opportune fit of coughing, and then turned the conversation by asking Jacques at what rate he thought the vessel was slipping through the water.

A few minutes later the first mate came up and told Jacques to inform Ralph that the captain had ordered him to be supplied with clothes similar to those worn by the rest of the crew, and that he was to be told off to take his post regularly as a boy in the starboard watch.  Ralph was well pleased at the news.  He felt that his best chance was to make himself useful on board, and to become one of the crew as soon as possible, so that in case an English merchantman was met with and captured he should not be sent with her crew as a prisoner to a French port.  As long as he was on board various opportunities of escape might present themselves.  He might slip away in port, or the brig might be captured by an English cruiser or privateer; whereas, once lodged in a French prison, the chances of such good fortune as had befallen Jacques were slight indeed.  He therefore at once turned to with alacrity.

That he would have a hard time of it for a bit he felt sure; for although in Jacques he had evidently found a friend, he saw by the scowling glances of several of the men as he passed near them that the national feeling told heavily against him.  Nor was it surprising that it should be so.  The animosity between the two nations had lasted so long that it had extended to individuals.  Englishmen despised as well as disliked Frenchmen.  They were ready to admit that they might be brave, but considered them as altogether wanting in personal strength.  The popular belief was that they were half-starved,