“I daresay that we shall be able to manage that without difficulty,” said Lady Elmore. “His Majesty will probably soon come up to deliver a speech in Parliament, and we shall then have a good opportunity of seeing him.”
This promise highly delighted True Blue; and he evidently looked forward to seeing the King with more satisfaction than to any sight he expected to witness during his visit to London.
True Blue was taken one evening to the play, but, unfortunately, what was called a naval drama was acted. Here both he and the midshipman were well qualified to criticise. He certainly was the more severe.
“Does that fellow call himself a sailor, marm?” he asked, turning to Lady Elmore. “Don’t believe it. He isn’t a bit more like a sailor than that thing they are hauling across the deck is like a ship—that is to say, any ship I ever saw. If she came to be launched, she’d do nothing but go round boxing the compass till she went to the bottom. Would she, Sir Henry?”
The midshipman was highly diverted. “The manager little thought that he had us to criticise his arrangements,” he answered, laughing. “The play is only got up for the amusement of landsmen, and to show them how we sailors fight for them.”
“But wouldn’t they like us to go and do that just now ourselves, Sir Henry?” exclaimed True Blue with eagerness. “If they’d give us a cutlass apiece, and would get those Frenchmen we saw just now to stand up like men, we would show them how we boarded and took the French frigate in our first cruise.”
Lady Elmore said she thought some confusion might be created if the proposal was carried out, and persuaded True Blue to give up the idea. When, however, one of the stage sailors came on and volunteered to dance a hornpipe, his indignation knew no bounds. “He’s not a true bluejacket—that I’ll warrant!” he exclaimed. “If he was, he wouldn’t be handling his feet in the way he is doing. I should so like to step down and just show you, my lady, and the rest of the good people here, how we dance aboard. If I had but Sam Smatch and his fiddle, I’ll warrant people would say which was the right and which was the wrong way pretty quickly.”
Lady Elmore explained to him, much to his surprise, that none but the actors who were paid for it were allowed to appear on the stage, but assured him that she would be very glad if some evening he would give them, at her house, an exhibition of his skill in dancing the hornpipe.
“That I will, my lady, with all my heart!” he exclaimed frankly. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to please you and the young ladies; and I think that you would like to see a right real sailor’s hornpipe danced. It does my heart good to dance it, I know. It is rare fun.”
On driving home, Lady Elmore asked him how he liked the play altogether.