At the other end of this we three neophytes were ushered into a large apartment, fitted with rows of desks and benches, arranged in parallel lines, which gave it the appearance of an ordinary schoolroom ashore; the only difference being that there was a harmonium on one side, and a cottage piano on the other, while a large circular band-stand stood in between the two in the centre.
Here one of the assistant-masters took charge of us, placing ‘Ugly’ and ‘Rattlebrains,’ as I had mentally christened my two companions, along with myself at a table in a corner of the room, away from the rest of the boys, some three hundred odd in number, who were all busy at their lessons.
No great obstacle to our joining the service was put in our way by the examination which we underwent; for, after being asked to spell a few easy words, tested as to our arithmetic with a sum in simple addition, and the multiplication table as far as six times six, besides being given a short sentence from some reader to write from dictation, the head schoolmaster filled up a form, which he attached to our papers, notifying that we were sufficiently educated to become Saint Vincent boys.
Our ordeal was thus ended.
The three of us were then escorted back again to the police office on the middle deck, where our papers were again handed to the master-at-arms to show that the regulations had been complied with.
This functionary did not seem at all surprised at our reappearance.
“Ha, Bowling, so you’ve passed your schooling all right, my lad, eh?” he said to me. “I thought you’d manage to pull through, somehow or other; and you, too, young shaver—you with that fine pair of flesh-coloured stockings on, I mean! I can’t quite make out your name here from the writing. It looks like ‘Damerum,’ or ‘Dunekin,’ or ‘Donkeyvan,’ or something of that sort! What do you call yourself, my lad, when you’re at home, eh?”
“Donovan, sor,” promptly answered my friend the ragged boy without any covering to his feet, whom, of course, he was addressing. “Me name’s Mick Donovan, sor.”
“An Irishman, eh?”
“No, sor; Oi’m an Oitalian, yer honour.”