“Grub’s all right, sir,” growled the Poplar boy.
“Is it the uniform?” asked the sharp clergyman.
“No fault to find with the clothes, sir.”
“Is it the ship?”
“Ship’s good enough, sir.”
Robert Lancaster, passing with a pail, half stopped to hear what the Poplar boy would say under this process of exhaustion.
“Well, well, what is the complaint you wish to make?”
Two Ninety from Poplar twisted his sailor’s cap nervously, and looked with some interest at his shoes.
“Well, sir,” he burst out, “it’s like this. They always keep on making you keep on.”
Robert Lancaster, finding after a few weeks that his disinclination to continuous work and exercise had vanished, detached himself therefore from the small set on the Westmouth, called “The Born-Tireds.” After the fifth week privileges came to him; he was allowed to go ashore with the other boys on Sunday afternoon; he joined in the drill, and this he liked so much that he concealed from the officers the fact that the cornet and he were close acquaintances, fearing that membership of the band, which practised far away down in the hold, would interfere. He found books in the library with a sea flavour, and read Stevenson and Henty, and Clark Russell. He liked Clark Russell’s books, because they had always one admirable young lady in a distressful predicament, and this young lady he always thought of as being Trixie Bell—Trixie who had sent him her photograph, taken by an eminent artist of Hackney Road, and presenting her as in a snowstorm, with no hat, a basket of choice roses on her arm. At prayers one night, Robert found himself, somewhat to his surprise, introducing a special silent reference to Trixie, and, pleased with his daring originality, he continued it, feeling in a shy, half-ashamed way, that he had now assumed a responsible position in regard to the young lady. For the rest, there was not much time on the Westmouth to think of outside affairs.