Altogether you would have thought that he was in a very bad temper and not at all disposed to take a couple of starving lads on board out of charity.

But he did not look at all such a man as those awkward, gaudily dressed, unsteady fellows the boys had seen in Antonino's shop on the previous night.

He looked a seaman, every inch of him, and they instinctively felt that as he stood there at the helm he knew his business thoroughly and could manage his craft as coolly in a winter storm as on this flat September sea, when the men were getting the sweeps out because there was not a breath of wind to stir the sails.
"Go forward and pick beans for dinner," he said.
That was the first job given the Children of the King when they went to sea.

For to sea they went and turned out seamen in due time, as good as the master who took them first, and perhaps a little better, though that is saying much.
And so I have told you who the Children of the King are and how they shipped as boys on board of a Sorrento felucca, being quite alone in the world, and now I will tell you of some things which happened to them afterwards, and not quite so long ago..