This adventure, as I took the treatment I received good humouredly, made me capital friends with all the seamen, and I found that there were not kinder-hearted or better men on board than Yool and Cockle.  I observed that Jerry took the opportunity when his father was below to play off the tricks imagined by his fertile brain, though he was sometimes discovered and reprimanded; but he put on so penitent an expression, and had such comical excuses to offer, that Captain Frankland saw that it would be worse than useless to punish him.  Indeed, punishment would scarcely have corrected such faults as he had.  Gerard, from being small, and having delicate features, though they were full of rich humour, looked younger than I did; but he was in reality older, and had much more experience of the world.  His constitution was considered delicate, which was the reason his father took him to sea at first; but now he liked the life so much, he told me, that he had resolved to follow it as a profession.  We both of us slept in a cabin which we had to ourselves, near the captain's.  Gerard was learning navigation; and Captain Frankland told me that I must study hard to catch him up, so that we might work together.  He superintended our studies; but Silas Brand was our chief master, and somehow or other, in his quiet way, he managed to impart a considerable amount of information in a pleasant and rapid manner.  It appeared to me that he always said the right thing at the right time, so as to impress it on the memory.  Our first officer, John Renshaw, was a very worthy man, but totally unlike my Cousin Silas. He was tall and thin, and had a long weather-beaten, rather melancholy-looking face.  Not that he was melancholy; the form of his features made him look so.  It is better, however, to look melancholy than to have facetious features, which always appear to be on a broad grin.  A strong contrast to both of them was found in our third officer, Samuel Melgrove.  He was a man with strongly-marked, rather coarse features, with red hair and complexion.  One might have expected to hear only the roughest tones come out of such a mouth as he possessed; but, instead, he spoke in a soft, somewhat mincing manner, and prided himself on his gentlemanly style and volubility.  He could, however, speak loud and rough enough in case of necessity.  If called on suddenly to shorten sail, no one could make himself better heard.  The mates on board a merchantman have the same sort of duty as the lieutenants of a man-of-war, with the addition of having to attend to the stowing of the cargo and stores.  We had also a surgeon, who was a good naturalist and a very scientific man--Mr David McRitchie.  He evidently at first looked with very grave suspicion on Gerard and me, as if we were only waiting our opportunity to play him some trick; and when he left his cabin he always locked the door, lest we should get in and do some mischief; but such an idea was, I must say, very far from my thoughts, and even Gerard respected him too much to wish to annoy him.  How to convince him of this seemed a difficulty.  Gerard undertook to assure him.