The very first voyage I ever made was caused by my mistaking a description, or forgetting it, which is the same thing.
And a horrible voyage it was.

I had to fight with the captain the whole way out, and made the homeward voyage by swimming!" "Come, Peterkin," said I, "you can't get even _me_ to believe that." "Perhaps not, but it's true, notwithstanding," returned Peterkin, pretending to be hurt at my doubting his word.
"Let us hear how it happened," said Jack, while a good-natured smile overspread his face.
"Well, you must know," began Peterkin, "that the very day before I went to sea, I was greatly taken up with a game at hockey, which I was playing with my old school-fellows for the last time before leaving them.

You see I was young then, Ralph." Peterkin gazed, in an abstracted and melancholy manner, out to sea! "Well, in the midst of the game, my uncle, who had taken all the bother and trouble of getting me bound 'prentice and rigged out, came and took me aside, and told me that he was called suddenly away from home, and would not be able to see me aboard, as he had intended.

'However,' said he, 'the captain knows you are coming, so that's not of much consequence; but as you'll have to find the ship yourself, you must remember her name and description.

D'ye hear, boy ?' I certainly did hear, but I'm afraid I did not understand, for my mind was so taken up with the game, which I saw my side was losing, that I began to grow impatient, and the moment my uncle finished his description of the ship, and bade me good-bye, I bolted back to my game, with only a confused idea of three masts, and a green painted tafferel, and a gilt figure-head of Hercules with his club at the bow.