“You leave off talking to that lady,” growled Bobbie, “or I’ll spoil your features for you.” The large young lady waved her hand and disappeared through the swing doors. “If you ain’t a gentleman, do, for goodness sake, try to ’ide the fact.”
In the few weeks of Bobbie’s residence, the Coastguard became his very good friend. The boy learned the secrets of flags, listened with an interest that he had never felt at school to the accounts of British victories by sea in the past, absorbing with great appetite the Coastguard’s figures illustrating the current state of the Navy. In his young heart patriotism was born.
Permitted to see through the telescope the coast of France, he commenced to realize actualities that he had never gained from maps. In the school of the Cottage Homes the general impression amongst incredulous small boys had been that no such places as foreign countries really existed; that these were fictions invented by adults for the more complete annoyance and trouble of children. Now the line of cliffs where on bright days tiny black specks could be seen moving, brought conviction; the boy found that he had much to learn, and something to forget. One Sunday afternoon, being allowed to go down to the sleeping harbour, and over the line, and along the quay by the Customs House, he met, by happy chance, the angel, in white, with green sunshade, who, it appeared, waited for some one who would be free as soon as the baggage had been cleared; together they watched the Channel steamer bustle in and wake up the harbour, saw ropes thrown, gangways fixed, and presently heard the arriving passengers chattering in a language which the angel told him was French.
“Ignorant set, ain’t they?” asked Bobbie.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the large young lady tolerantly.
“I ’aven’t got much opinion of foreigners,” said the boy. “For one thing, why don’t they learn a decent language like ourn?”
“I s’pose they get on all right without it.”
“Do you know any French?”
“A bit,” said the angel modestly.
“Tell us some!”