“Who is to wash breakfast-cloths for such a young powder-monkey as you? Remember that in future you only breakfast with me once a month.” Then turning to me, he said in a gentle tone, “You see, Finnahan, I must maintain discipline.”
I of course said nothing, but bolted the remainder of my breakfast as fast as I could, thinking it prudent to take my leave, lest his lordship should, with or without reason, find fault with anything I might do, and treat me in the same way.
Chapter Twenty Three.
A Middy Flogged.
On returning to the berth, I found poor Dicky blubbering, and looking very melancholy.
“It was not the loss of my breakfast, for I don’t care if I never have another with him, but it was the indignity with which I was treated,” he exclaimed. At this most of our messmates laughed.
“Indignity, do you call it, Dicky, to be kicked by a lord? It’s a high honour,” said old Grumpus, who had joined us just before we sailed, and did duty as mate of the lower deck. “Look out, youngster, that you don’t get treated with greater indignity before long. I took the skipper’s measure the day I first set eyes on him. With all his mincing manners and fine talk, depend upon it he’ll prove a Tartar at bottom.”
Besides Dicky, another youngster had come to sea for the first time, and was related, it was supposed, to the captain. Alfred de Lisle was somewhat older than Dicky Larcom, and a refined, nice fellow. I took a great liking to him, though he had his faults. He was excessively indignant when he heard how Dicky had been treated.