cannot believe it!”
“Indeed I was.”
“But how—”
Summers looked round with an air of great cheerfulness .
“I have performed the naval operation known as ‘ coming aft through the hawsehole’. I was promoted from the lower deck, or, as you would say, from among the common sailors.”
Your lordship can have little idea of my astonishment at his words and my irritation at finding the whole of our small society waiting in silence for my reply. I fancy it was as dextrous as the occasion demanded, though perhaps spoken with a too magisterial aplomb.
“Well, Summers,” I said, “Allow me to congratulate you on imitating to perfection the manners and speech ofa somewhat higher station in life than the one you was born to.”
Summers thanked me with a possibly excessive gratitude . Then he addressed the assembly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, pray let us be seated. There must be no ceremony. Let us sit where we choose. There will, I hope, be many such occasions in the long passage before us. Bates, bid them strike up out there.”
At this there came the somewhat embarrassing squeak of a fiddle and other instruments from the lobby. I did what I could to ease what might well be called constraint .
“Come Summers,” I said, “if we are not to be portrayed together, let us take the opportunity and pleasure of seating Miss Granham between us. Pray, ma’am, allow me.”
Was that not to risk another set-down? But I handed Miss Granham to her seat under the great window with more ceremony than I would have shown a peeress of the realm, and there we were. When I exclaimed at the excellent quality of the meat Lieutenant Deverel, who had seated himself on my left hand, explained that one of our cows had broken a leg in the late blow so we were taking what we could while it was still there though we should soon be short of milk. Miss Granham was now in animated conversation with Mr Summers on her right so Mr Deverel and I conversed for some time on the topic of seamen and their sentimentality over a cow with a broken leg, their ingenuity in all manner of crafts both good and bad, their addiction to liquor, their immorality, their furious courage and their devotion, only half-joking, to the ship’s figurehead. We agreed there were few problems in society that would not yield to firm but perceptive government . It was so, he said, in a ship. I replied that I had seen the firmness but was yet to be convinced of the perception . By now the, shall I say, animation of the wholeparty had risen to such a height that nothing could be heard of the music in the lobby. One topic leading to another, Deverel and I rapidly gained a degree of mutual understanding. He opened himself to me. He had wished for a proper ship of the line, not a superannuated third-rate with a crew small in number and swept up together in a day or two. What I had taken to be an established body of officers and men had known each other for at most a week or two since she came out of ordinary. It was a great shame and his father might have done better for him. This commission would do his own prospects no good at all let alone that the war was running down and would soon stop like an unwound clock. Deverel’s speech and manner, indeed everything about him, is elegant. He is an ornament to the service.
The saloon was now as noisy as a public place can well be. Something was overset amidst shouts of laughter and some oaths. Already a mousey little pair, Mr and Mrs Pike with the small twin daughters, had scurried away and now at a particularly loud outburst, Miss Granham started to her feet, though pressed to stay both by me and Summers. He declared she must not mind the language of naval officers which became habitual and unconscious among the greater part of them. For my part I thought the ill- behaviour came more from the passengers than the ship’s officers—Good God, said I to myself, if she is like this at the after end, what is she like at the other?
“Indeed I was.”
“But how—”
Summers looked round with an air of great cheerfulness .
“I have performed the naval operation known as ‘ coming aft through the hawsehole’. I was promoted from the lower deck, or, as you would say, from among the common sailors.”
Your lordship can have little idea of my astonishment at his words and my irritation at finding the whole of our small society waiting in silence for my reply. I fancy it was as dextrous as the occasion demanded, though perhaps spoken with a too magisterial aplomb.
“Well, Summers,” I said, “Allow me to congratulate you on imitating to perfection the manners and speech ofa somewhat higher station in life than the one you was born to.”
Summers thanked me with a possibly excessive gratitude . Then he addressed the assembly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, pray let us be seated. There must be no ceremony. Let us sit where we choose. There will, I hope, be many such occasions in the long passage before us. Bates, bid them strike up out there.”
At this there came the somewhat embarrassing squeak of a fiddle and other instruments from the lobby. I did what I could to ease what might well be called constraint .
“Come Summers,” I said, “if we are not to be portrayed together, let us take the opportunity and pleasure of seating Miss Granham between us. Pray, ma’am, allow me.”
Was that not to risk another set-down? But I handed Miss Granham to her seat under the great window with more ceremony than I would have shown a peeress of the realm, and there we were. When I exclaimed at the excellent quality of the meat Lieutenant Deverel, who had seated himself on my left hand, explained that one of our cows had broken a leg in the late blow so we were taking what we could while it was still there though we should soon be short of milk. Miss Granham was now in animated conversation with Mr Summers on her right so Mr Deverel and I conversed for some time on the topic of seamen and their sentimentality over a cow with a broken leg, their ingenuity in all manner of crafts both good and bad, their addiction to liquor, their immorality, their furious courage and their devotion, only half-joking, to the ship’s figurehead. We agreed there were few problems in society that would not yield to firm but perceptive government . It was so, he said, in a ship. I replied that I had seen the firmness but was yet to be convinced of the perception . By now the, shall I say, animation of the wholeparty had risen to such a height that nothing could be heard of the music in the lobby. One topic leading to another, Deverel and I rapidly gained a degree of mutual understanding. He opened himself to me. He had wished for a proper ship of the line, not a superannuated third-rate with a crew small in number and swept up together in a day or two. What I had taken to be an established body of officers and men had known each other for at most a week or two since she came out of ordinary. It was a great shame and his father might have done better for him. This commission would do his own prospects no good at all let alone that the war was running down and would soon stop like an unwound clock. Deverel’s speech and manner, indeed everything about him, is elegant. He is an ornament to the service.
The saloon was now as noisy as a public place can well be. Something was overset amidst shouts of laughter and some oaths. Already a mousey little pair, Mr and Mrs Pike with the small twin daughters, had scurried away and now at a particularly loud outburst, Miss Granham started to her feet, though pressed to stay both by me and Summers. He declared she must not mind the language of naval officers which became habitual and unconscious among the greater part of them. For my part I thought the ill- behaviour came more from the passengers than the ship’s officers—Good God, said I to myself, if she is like this at the after end, what is she like at the other?
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