The doctor was immediately sent for while Mrs Bevengton administered all she knew, and in half an hour Bessie was sitting up in bed, Jack's bed, drinking hot beef tea. She smiled genially. "I'm sorry to give you all this trouble, Mrs Carstairs," she said.
That evening Jack's sailor uncle paid a surprise visit—his were nearly always surprise visits; he came and went like the sea breeze, fresh, boisterous, and invigorating. As they sat smoking after dinner and commenting on the morning's catastrophe, Commander John Carstairs, R.N., looked across at his nephew and namesake through the smoke.
"You didn't shout?" he asked.
"It didn't occur to me."
"Like to bully through on your own, eh?
"That's it, I suppose."
"You ought to have put that boy in the service, Hugh."
"Er—yes, perhaps so."
"How would you have liked it, Jack?"
"Oh, first-class, I think. However 'what is, is best,' you know, 'the moving finger writes,' etc. I'm going to make money."