“I hear very good reports of both of you, my lads—of you Bowling in particular,” he said, looking at some papers before him, which he signed and handed over to the marine sentry, telling him to send them on to the ship’s office; “and, as you are now both eighteen, the proper age to be entered on the books as ‘ordinary seamen,’ and have shown your aptitude for the service during the six months you have been aboard this ship, I pass you, my lads, so you may now look upon yourselves as ‘boys’ no longer!”
Thanking the lieutenant, we left the wardroom, as may be supposed, decorously enough; but we had no sooner got out on the dock without than Mick executed a wild caper, which made the sentry grin.
“Bedad, Tom,” he said, loud enough for the marine to hear, “me fayther allers s’id Oi’d be a man afore me moother; an’, faith, Oi’m thet now, plaize the pigs!”
It was certainly a most unexpected dénouement to the ordeal we had expected when sending in our names, both of us thinking we would have had to pass some stiff grind in seamanship and other naval acquirements, similar to the examinations we used to undergo on board the old Saint Vincent; and as we now were rated really as seamen, with the pay of one shilling and threepence a day, instead of sevenpence, besides having all the dirty work of the ship taken off our hands, Mick and I considered ourselves in clover, as you may readily imagine!
The Active and Volage, the two Portsmouth ships of the Training Squadron, went into harbour early the very next morning, laying alongside the dockyard as before, to refit for their summer cruise; and, later on, when we were moored in our old berth at the Pitch-House jetty and things made right on board, we got leave with the rest of the starboard watch to go ashore, Mick, of course, going home with me, and Jocko equally, of course, forming one of the company.
On our reaching Bonfire Corner, Mick was in a fix about Jocko, apparently, eyeing him when we got near the door of father’s cottage, and then looking at me with a puzzled expression on his face, the monkey saving him the trouble of scratching his head, which Mick had got into the habit of doing whenever he was in a quandary, by most affectionately performing the operation for him.
“Hullo, old chap,” said I, “what’s up?”
“Faith, Tom, Oi’m onaisy in me moind, sure, about Jocko,” he replied. “Oi don’t want yer sisther to be afther sayin’ him at foorst. Sure, Oi want to take her be surprise, alannah.”
“Well,” said I, “that needn’t trouble you, Mick. Let’s put the little beggar over the garden wall.”
“But, s’posin’ onywun’s theer?”