Part 28 (1/2)

He had a sharp eye, had father, and had caught Mick winking at me.

So, there being now no longer any need, or indeed chance, of concealment, especially with Jenny's eyes fixed on him, Mick thought it best to make a clean breast of it at once.

”Coom down out o' thet, ye divvle. 'Tens.h.i.+n, Jocko!” cried he, patting his shoulder, to which his friend the monkey at once jumped from the tree; and then, turning to my sister, he said, with a roguish look in his black eyes, ”Oi've brought ye a little prisint, Miss Jenny, ez Oi hopes ez how ye'll be afther acceptin'.”

Jenny smiled.

”What,” said she--”a monkey?”

”No, Miss Jenny,” replied Mick, grinning, while Jocko chattered in sympathetic glee. ”He ain't a monkey at all, at all. Sure, he's what I calls a Saint Michael's canary!”

This was a settler for all of them; father leaning back in his chair and holding his sides, while mother and Jenny enjoyed the joke as much as we could both wish, 'Ally Sloper' adding to the merriment of us all by shrieking out at intervals alternately, ”Say-rah! Say-rah!” and ”Blest if I don't have a smoke!” in father's very own voice.

On returning to the _Active_ after our leave was up, Mick and I were sent to the guards.h.i.+p, or depot, having to leave our old s.h.i.+p through getting our new rating as ordinary seamen, we having been drafted to her as 'boys'; for, being no longer held to be such, we, of course, had no 'local habitation or name,' according to the saying, on board her.

We did not have much of a stay at home, however, all the same, Mick getting appointed within the next fortnight to the flags.h.i.+p on the Cape station, when he and I parted for the first time since we became chums, more than two years previously, on our joining the _Saint Vincent_ together.

A sailor's life, though, is made up of partings, not only with one another, but with the old folks at home as well, and sometimes with certain persons even dearer than these; so, wringing my hand in his hearty grip and leaving a tender farewell for Jenny, whom he was unable to see before going away, she being on a visit to a cousin of ours who lived at Chichester, Mick and I said good-bye to one another. Really, I envied his luck of getting the chance of seeing active service so soon!

I did not have to envy him long; for, a week later, I was turned over to the _Mermaid_, a new second-cla.s.s cruiser just commissioned to join the eastern division of the Mediterranean Fleet, to take the place for the time of one of the smaller s.h.i.+ps belonging to the squadron, under refit at Malta, our orders being then to proceed to the Red Sea, where it was expected that Osman Digna would be making matters warm in and about Suakin later on in the year.

Some three days subsequently to my going on board her, with a complete new rig-out, bag, baggage, and all, the _Mermaid_ sailed for the Straits; if sailing it can be called in a s.h.i.+p going by steam alone, and which had not a royal-yard to cross, or any other spars to speak of aloft for that matter, the cruiser being rigged to carry fore-and-aft sail in case of emergency should her engines break down.

It might be thought from this that my early training in a sailing-s.h.i.+p was thrown away, there being no longer any necessity for me to display my activity in racing up the rigging and running out on a yard to reef topsails.

The contrary, however, was the case; and I've found, even during my short experience afloat--ay, and in spite of the ridiculous a.s.sertions of some sh.o.r.e folk, who know about as much of life in the navy as they do to club-haul a s.h.i.+p off a lee sh.o.r.e--that the men who have learnt to hold on by the skin of their teeth in a heavy gale, from the apt.i.tude they have gained in the old-fas.h.i.+oned cla.s.s of s.h.i.+ps, are the handiest and the readiest at a pinch in the new!

Of course, though, I only found out this afterwards; as on first joining the _Mermaid_ the s.h.i.+p was as strange to me as I, sore at parting with Mick, felt myself a complete stranger to all on board.

So I thought, at least.

But I was mistaken.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

”Hullo!” exclaimed a voice that seemed very familiar to me, on my getting down to the mess-deck below with my bag, when I had got my number, and been told off to my watch and division. ”Who'd ha' thought o' meeting yer here?”

The speaker was a broad-shouldered chap, with a lot of hair all over his face, and I did not recognise him for the moment.

”You've got the advantage of me, mate,” said I civilly, not wis.h.i.+ng to hurt his feelings if he had made a mistake in addressing me, as I believed he had. ”I can't place you.”

”Lor', carn't yer?” replied the chap, with a broad grin stealing over his face. ”I fancies, Tom Bowlin', I hed th' adwantage on yer onst, an'

placed yer too, that time I cut yer down in yer hammick aboard the _Saint Vincent_, hey, old s.h.i.+p?”

It was Larrikins.

Needless to say how glad I was to meet him again, or what yarns we had to tell each other of what had happened to us respectively since last we met.