Poor thing! She was firmly convinced in her innocent mind that I would be able to trace, by this means, anything missing from my stock of wearing apparel!
But, notwithstanding all her elaborate precautions, Dad proved a true prophet; for, on my return home from my first commission, I do not believe I had any two of a set out of the dozens of shirts and collars and handkerchiefs I was originally supplied with and which she had so neatly marked.
On the contrary, the scanty contents of my battered old donkey of a chest, whilom gorgeously painted in blue and gold, consisted but of a scant lot of half-worn-out items of clothing, not one of which matched the other, and the owners whereof, judging by the different inscribed initials thereon were as various as their respective conditions of wear!
On the same evening my things came from the outfitter’s, and even while my poor mother was engaged on the fruitless task she had imposed on herself of ensuring my continual possession, as she vainly thought of the same, I stole, away from the dinner-table and retired for a brief space to the little bedroom I still occupied at the top of the hotel, with the way to and from which I was now better acquainted than on the morning after I first slept “under the tiles.”
“Ain’t we grand!” sang out Dad, chaffingly, when I presently reappeared below in all the glory of my new uniform as a naval cadet.
This was the same then as now:—blue trousers and jacket with crown and anchor buttons and a cunningly-shaped little collar, that had a white facing to the lapel and the buttonholes of the turn-back worked with twisted cord of the same colour in proper regulation fashion; not to speak of my cap with its golden badge, and the formidable-looking carving-knife of a dirk, twenty inches long in its black scabbard, which I wore at my belt!
“Why, Master Jack, you’ll be ‘topping the officer’ over me now in your war paint,” added Dad, after turning me round twice to inspect me. “You are rigged out smart, and no mistake!”
“Don’t tease the poor boy, my dear,” said my mother, looking at me with fond admiration as most mothers would do, probably, under similar circumstances. “He looks very nice—very nice, indeed. I’m sure he is the very image of what you were when I first saw you, Frank!”
“Thanks, my dear, for the compliment,” replied Dad, bowing to her half-jocularly, half-seriously, while he heaved a deep sigh. “I’m not making fun of Jack at all. I really was thinking how long ago it is since I donned the same uniform like him for the first time. Ah me, thirty years and more have passed since then; and I’m an old fogey, while he’s just beginning life! I hope, my dear Jack, you’ll never do anything to make you ashamed of having put on the Queen’s livery!”
“That I won’t, Dad,” said I emphatically; and I meant it! “I’ll try to follow your example, and always recollect I am your son.”