“Yes, sir; certainly, sir; beg pardon, sir, but you said I was never to leave you till you were regularly woke up.”
Jack said something inarticulate, and Edward went out once more grinning.
“My word!” he muttered; “he is coming round.”
“I don’t get a bit of peace,” cried the boy peevishly, and he sprang out of bed, washed in hot water, shivered as he dried himself, and then turned to begin dressing, and paused.
Which way should he go?
On two chairs a yard apart lay his clothes: on the left his things he had worn the previous day; on his right, a suit specially made for the life ashore that they were to live abroad; and after a little hesitation he began to dress in that, finding everything feel strange, but certainly very comfortable, and at last he stood there in garments very much like those in which the man had come in, and he looked at himself in the glass.
Nothing could have been more comfortable and suitable, as he was fain to confess; but all the same the inclination was strong to take them off. He resisted, however, and in due time went down, feeling strange and half ashamed of being seen.
Sir John was in the breakfast-room, and he looked up from his newspaper rather severely, but as soon as he caught sight of his son’s altered appearance, the paper dropped from his hands and he rose quickly.
“Thank you, Jack,” he said warmly. “You did this to please me, and I am more than pleased. It shows me that you are trying to make the brave fight I expect of you, as my son should. Hah! you will see the truth of it all before long.”
He would have said more, but the doctor was heard in the hall, and directly after he entered in his bluff fashion.