“And have you any children?” continued Young Brydell.
“A boy about your size, but he ain’t here.”
Young Brydell felt so surprised and also so hurt at Grubb’s want of confidence in keeping these important facts to himself that he could only stare at him. Grubb laughed rather grimly.
“You see, my wife belonged to better folks than I. Her folks said she oughtn’t to marry a jirene, as they called me. Her father was a master mechanic, and when she died, poor thing! they took the boy, saying they could do a better part by him than I could; a marine don’t git much pay, you know; and, like a fool, I give him up. Now, in some way, the boy don’t seem like my child. He’s got schooling, more ’n I ever had, and he goes to school with fellers whose fathers I waits on, and he’s ashamed o’ this here uniform I wear. So when I seen how it was, a year or two back, I kinder let the thing go. I send him half my pay every month, and it don’t pay for the clothes he wears, they dress him so fine, and it seems to me I oughtn’t to bring him here, just to associate with Micky O’Toole and the rest o’ the men’s children.”
“But I ’sociate with Micky O’Toole,” put in Young Brydell.
“That’s different. Micky knows how you are goin’ to be an officer and as how if ever he gits in the navy, ’twill be as a ’prentice boy, and Micky ain’t no sort o’ a aspiring fellow. He don’t want to be no gentleman. But my boy does. And my boy’s too good for me, that’s a fact.”
“He oughtn’t to be,” said Young Brydell stoutly. “You’re a good fellow; everybody says so, and you’re a handsome fellow, and papa says he never saw a better set-up fellow, and you’ll be promoted.”
“No, sir,” answered Grubb, shaking his head, “I ain’t eddicated. I know my business, but it takes book learnin’ to make a sergeant or even a corporal. I can read and write and cipher some, but my boy could beat me at it before he was eight years old. It seems to me like the boy was mine and yet he ain’t mine; but yonder’s the admiral comin’ and I ain’t been to the postoffice yet.” So Grubb strode off, leaving Young Brydell considerably mystified about the marine’s boy.
CHAPTER III.
BRYDELL’S FIRST FAILURE.
Just six years after the May day that Young Brydell had nearly shot Grubb’s ear off, on a day as bright, he sat with a number of other young fellows about his own age around a long table, answering the questions of three professors who were examining them. Each had a great stake in this examination, as it was for an appointment to the naval academy at Annapolis.