Young Tom Bowling | Page 9

of their parents that they were joining Her Majesty's Service with their full consent and goodwill.
When it came to my turn, though, I had absolutely nothing to show.
"Hullo!" exclaimed the master-at-arms. "Where are your papers, young 'un?"
I was about to explain; but the ship's corporal who had first spoken to me at the entry-port and taken on to the captain the letter from Captain Mordaunt which father had handed to me, saved all further trouble.
"Here are Tom Bowling's certificates, sir," said he, giving the couple of sheets of foolscap in question to his superior officer. "The cap'en says they're all right, and he's to be entered if he passes the schoolmaster and is medically fit."
"That's all right, then, Mister Bowling," said the master-at-arms to me, with a mock bow. "Hullo, though, Bowling--Bowling? It strikes me I've heard that name before, my lad. Father in the service, eh?"
"He has served in the navy, sir," I replied. "But he's a pensioner now, and works as a waterman up and down the harbour."
"Ah, I thought so! He and I were old shipmates together out in the Ashantee War on the West Coast, and I recollect him well. You are very like him, too, I can see now from the cut of your jib, youngster! You're a regular chip of the old block."
"So everybody says, sir," I said with a grin. "I only hope, sir, I will turn out as good a sailor!"
"Only act up to that wish, my boy, and you'll do! I say, corporal, take these three lads down to the schoolmaster and see what he makes of them."
With that, giving me a friendly nod, the master-at-arms dismissed us, and the ship's corporal conducted us down the nearest hatchway to the lower deck.
At the other end of this we three neophytes were ushered into a large apartment, fitted with rows of desks and benches, arranged in parallel lines, which gave it the appearance of an ordinary schoolroom ashore; the only difference being that there was a harmonium on one side, and a cottage piano on the other, while a large circular band-stand stood in between the two in the centre.
Here one of the assistant-masters took charge of us, placing `Ugly' and `Rattlebrains,' as I had mentally christened my two companions, along with myself at a table in a corner of the room, away from the rest of the boys, some three hundred odd in number, who were all busy at their lessons.
No great obstacle to our joining the service was put in our way by the examination which we underwent; for, after being asked to spell a few easy words, tested as to our arithmetic with a sum in simple addition, and the multiplication table as far as six times six, besides being given a short sentence from some reader to write from dictation, the head schoolmaster filled up a form, which he attached to our papers, notifying that we were sufficiently educated to become Saint Vincent boys.
Our ordeal was thus ended.
The three of us were then escorted back again to the police office on the middle deck, where our papers were again handed to the master-at- arms to show that the regulations had been complied with.
This functionary did not seem at all surprised at our reappearance.
"Ha, Bowling, so you've passed your schooling all right, my lad, eh?" he said to me. "I thought you'd manage to pull through, somehow or other; and you, too, young shaver--you with that fine pair of flesh-coloured stockings on, I mean! I can't quite make out your name here from the writing. It looks like `Damerum,' or `Dunekin,' or `Donkeyvan,' or something of that sort! What do you call yourself, my lad, when you're at home, eh?"
"Donovan, sor," promptly answered my friend the ragged boy without any covering to his feet, whom, of course, he was addressing. "Me name's Mick Donovan, sor."
"An Irishman, eh?"
"No, sor; Oi'm an Oitalian, yer honour."
The master-at-arms burst out laughing, for really the devil-me-care chap's brogue was strong enough to have hung a kettle full of potatoes on it. Even the ship's corporal could not help smiling, though in the presence of his superior officer.
"Nonsense, boy, don't you try to gammon me," cried the master-at-arms, as soon as he was able to speak. "An Italian from the county Cork, I'm thinking!"
"Oi'm that same, yer honour," protested the other, as grave as a judge. "Me fayther came over here harvestin' last summer, sor, an' turned organ-grinder; an' now, sure, he's an Oitalian."
"Was it him that signed this paper?" asked the master-at-arms, when he was able to control his speech again after a second burst of merriment at the Irish boy's droll way of expressing himself, and comical look. "I s'pose it's his new foreign style of writing and spelling that prevented my making