Poor Tom! after believing that the admiral had suspected nothing up to the last moment, to be thus undeceived.
It was heartrending!
Gone was his commission, he thought, at one fell blow, with all the pleasant dreams of promotion that had flashed across his brain after the admiral’s encomiums on him that afternoon; and he would have to think himself very lucky if he were not tried by court-martial and dismissed the service with disgrace.
It was paying dearly for a practical joke, played off on the spur of the moment, truly!
When he reached the Porpoise he felt so disgusted that he kicked poor Jocko, boat-cloak, fez and all, down the main hatch, gruffly ordered his gig to be triced up to the davits, and went below to brood over his anticipated disgrace in the solitude of his own cabin, where I presently found him.
After a great deal of persuasion, I got him to indite a letter of apology to the admiral, detailing all Jocko’s perfections, and how he had been constantly an inmate of his cabin; while assuring him that the passing off the monkey as a “foreigner” had not been a planned thing, but was only the result of an accident and his own unaccountable love of fun, although the falsehood he had been guilty of was most reprehensible.
Indeed, as I made him observe, if it had not been for the admiral himself suggesting the imposture, he, Tom, would never have dreamt of it; but, he concluded, he would regret it all his life, for he had not only told a lie, but the whole matter appeared like a deliberately contemplated insult to his superior officer.
This letter Tom, still acting under my advice, sent off immediately to the flagship, as it was yet not late, and within half an hour he received an answer which made him dance an Indian war-dance of delight around the cabin table, where he and I were awaiting the news that was to make or mar poor Tom’s future life.
The admiral’s ran thus:—
“Flag, at sea, July, 18—.
“Dear Commander,
“I accept your apology, and forgive the joke which I enjoyed, I believe, more than you did, having discovered Master Jocko’s identity from the first moment when he took his Turkish fez off to salute me in the cabin, on my entering—you young rascal! I would not have missed for a hundred pounds the agony you were in all the time you were sitting at my table, and, I really think, I had the best of the joke!
“Come and breakfast with me and I will tell you the reason why I address you as above—I suppose he never told you, but your father was one of my dearest friends.
“Yours, with best compliments to ‘Señor Carrambo,’
“Anson.”