“Mind you put them between the blankets, and give them each something hot to drink when they turn in,” he shouted back over the railings. “I’ll come round in the morning and give them a lecture to wake ’em up!”
With these last words, off he went; his malacca cane coming down with a thump on the pavement at every third step he took, until the sound died away in the distance—“Stump, Stump, Thump!—Stump, stump, Thump!—Stump, stump, Thump!”
Chapter Five.
Both “suited.”
Dick was now “in clover!”
Running away from a poor home and the tyranny of a cruel step-father, he had, in the first instance, providentially succeeded in getting ‘a free passage,’ as the Captain expressed it, to Portsmouth, the goal of his fondest ambition.
Then, after thus successfully overcoming the obstacles that lay in the way of his going to sea, so far as this initial stage to that ultimate end was concerned, the lucky fellow, in addition to gaining the Captain’s favour and making the acquaintance of Bob and Nellie, put the finishing-touch to his good fortune by winning over Mrs Gilmour to his side—a lady who, as a friend, was worth perhaps all the rest, she being true as steel and thoughtful and considerate in every way.
For the Captain’s sake alone, she would willingly have given the poor homeless lad house-room; but, beyond that, she had taken a strong fancy to Dick from noticing his willing manner and anxiety to oblige those who had been kind to him at the station, an impression that was more than confirmed subsequently when she witnessed his gallant conduct in plunging into the water to try and save the impulsive Bob.