"I suppose not. Probably some yachting chaps who have been prominent socially and got their pictures in the papers. I hope not, though. There are some good men in the Reserve. I only hope they may give me men who have had experience in steamers. I don't want any of these pets who have commissions merely because they had influence, or because they were rich enough to give a boat."
I said nothing. I had the light that I was looking for, although it did not illumine my problem, but was what I had supposed it would be. After all, if a man do but use the sense that God gave him and stand by his judgments, he will do well enough. I would have none of Old Goodwin's steamer. What was I, to be officer on a great steamer? I might command a rowboat, or a yacht like Pukkie's if need were.
"You do not have a very high opinion," I said, "of the navy?"
"What?" he said. "High opinion? Oh, yes, I have. Good men and fine vessels, many of them. It's a sailor's right to growl at the service he's in. You mustn't take what he says too seriously."
"Would you advise a man to enroll in the navy?"
"Depends on the man. If he has a taste for the sea, he'd be more contented in the navy than in the army, but many men have a strong distaste for it. I'd advise your man to get the best rank he can, and to have no modesty about it. If he doesn't get it some other fellow will who is not troubled by modesty."
And Captain Fergus took up his pacing the deck again, and Pukkie walked beside him, taking as long a stride as he could. Elizabeth watched them, a smile of affection in her eyes.
"Isn't he fine in his uniform?" she whispered. "But he would be happier if he could wear his old blue coat and his old blue cap."
He was fine, and he looked the sailor and the fighter. But I knew that old blue coat and that old blue cap, hanging in his cabin. The sun had shone caressingly upon them many times, and seemed to like them almost as well as he liked them; and they had changed their colors, as everything does under the caresses of the sun, until they were blue no longer, but of a purplish cast, shot with red.