Tom Finchs Monkey, and how he dined with the Admiral | Page 4

a despatch vessel; so, taking in as much coal as our old tub, the Porpoise, could cram into her, we started for Callao, steaming hard day and night all this time-- but it took us no less than ten days to reach our port at last.
The admiral's ship was in the offing as we entered the harbour; and, without the slightest warning or time for preparation after we had made our muster, the old gentleman signalled, much to Tom's discomposure, that he was coming on board of us for inspection at once.
"A pretty kettle of fish!" exclaimed Tom; "just as if he couldn't give a fellow time to paint up a bit and look tidy after sweltering all the pitch off her for eighteen months on the coast, and scuttling across the Atlantic as if the deuce were after us, and not a day allowed us to overhaul and make the old ship look presentable--why, it's too bad!"
"You needn't grumble, sir," said I--we were both on the quarter-deck now, and the friend had, of course, to yield to the office--"I'm sure the admiral won't be able to find much fault with the Porpoise, even if he were predetermined to do so, as she's in apple-pie order!"
And so she was; while her crew, who almost worshipped Tom and would have followed him to a man anywhere, were in the highest state of discipline and health, the African fever having disappeared almost as soon as we lost sight of the pestilential West Coast and got into blue water.
"Do you think so, Follett?" he said more calmly.
"Certainly," I answered, "I would back her against any other vessel on the station for being in the highest state of efficiency."
"I'm glad you think so, Gerald," he said to me aside, so that the middies who went to man the side ropes for the admiral at the gangway could not hear him. "You know these big guns are always sharp on a fellow who holds a first command; and, as I have no interest to back me up at the Admiralty board, I don't want a bad report to go in against me, and a black mark be set before my name for ever!"
"Don't you fear, Tom," said I cheerfully, "you'll pass muster with flying colours!"
Well, the admiral came on board and the inspection turned out just as I expected.
Not only was the gallant chief satisfied with the condition of the Porpoise; but, after having mustered the men at quarters, and having them exercised at gun-drill and cutlasses, he was so pleased that he publicly complimented Tom Finch on the state of his ship and crew, saying that they were not only creditable to him, but to the service generally.
So far, so good.
When the admiral, however, descended presently to Tom's cabin to sign papers, and perhaps to give a look around him, too, to see how such an efficient officer comported himself when "at home" so to speak, Tom's evil genius placed Master Jocko in the way.
There he was, seated on the sofa, dressed up in some nondescript sort of uniform with which the youngsters had invested him during Tom's absence on deck--the young imps were always up to some of their larks--and being of a kindred disposition himself, Tom was never hard on them for their tricks.
The monkey had on a blue coat and trousers with a red sash across his chest and a Turkish fez on his head, which gave him the appearance of one of the many Chilian field marshals, and generals, and colonels whom we had seen at Valparaiso, his wizened, dried-up face adding to the delusion.
As luck would have it, too, what should Jocko do, as the admiral and Tom entered the cabin, but rise from the sofa; and taking off the cap from his head with one of his paws, while the other was laid deferentially on his chest, he made a most polite bow, in the manner he had always been used to do, when either of us greeted him on coming in.
"Who's this gentleman?" said the admiral pleasantly, taking off his cocked hat likewise, and returning the salute--"I suppose someone you've given a passage to on the way, eh?"
Tom was at his wit's end, as he told me afterwards, for the moment; but his native "nous" came to the rescue, and, combined with his love of a practical joke, suggested a loophole of escape.
"Oh, sir," said he, "this is one of the aides-de-camp of the Chilian generalissimo, a Senor Carrambo, who begged me to land him at Callao on some urgent private business. Of course, I know, sir, of the hostilities between his native state and Peru, and that as a neutral I ought not to offer any means of communication between the two powers; but, sir, as