United States or Malawi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The middies, meanwhile, on the starboard side of the quarter-deck, were taking my altitude, and speculating as to whether I was to be a messmate of theirs, and what sort of a chap I might chance to be both these points were solved very speedily. The first lieutenant came on deck; the midshipman of the watch presented me, and I presented my name and the captain's message.
On the completion of this, the command was given to hoist away; whereupon the halliards were manned below and the topsails run up again. "Trim sails!" sang out Commander Nesbitt as soon as he saw the middies and their men coming down from aloft. "Lee braces brace up the yards!"
"May we come in?" called Prescott, knocking on the door of the middies' quarters. "Who's there?" called a voice. Then the Navy coach, in uniform, opened the door. "Oh, come in, gentlemen," called the coach, holding out his hand. "And let me congratulate you, Prescott and Holmes, on the very fine game that you two had a star part in putting up for the nine from Crabtown."
The young 'un did just what he liked with him, and after five minutes he knocked him silly, his eyes were beginning to close, he was just bleeding like a pig at the nose; but it was a cut on the mouth that finished him, and knocked him out of time altogether, and the young 'un had never been as much as touched once. "You should have heard how the middies cheered.
Then went two of the middies, just about your age, Mr Simple; they, poor fellows, went off in a sad hurry; then went the master and so it went on, till at last we had no more nor sixty men left in the ship The captain died last, and then Yellow Jack had filled his maw, and left the rest of us alone. As soon as the captain died, all the sharks left the ship, and we never saw any more of them."
Immediately they made a quick break for the Navy quarters. "It looks almost cheeky to throw ourselves in on the other fellows," muttered Greg dubiously. "Some of the middies will think we've come in on purpose to see how they take their beating." "They didn't get a bad enough beating to need to feel ashamed," replied Dick. "And we won't say a word about the game, anyway."
After about fifteen minutes in the water they returned to the camp and donned their khaki middies; then they had breakfast. The breakfast dishes had not long been washed and put away when another caller arrived at the camp.
The little midshipman was a great favorite with Katharine, and, grateful for the interruption, she accordingly laid her hand lightly and affectionately on the shoulder of the Honorable Giles Montagu, aged thirteen, one of the youngest and smallest middies in the ship; but he stood very straight and rigid, the personification of dignity, and endeavored to look very manly indeed. "Thank you, Mr.
Almost while the deckhands were doing this the skipper rang the engineer's bell. "Come into the wheel-'ouse with me," invited the skipper pleasantly, which invitation the three middies accepted. "Now, then, young gentlemen, 'ow did it 'appen that you missed your own launches." "It was a mean trick a scoundrelly one!" cried Darrin resentfully. Then he described just what had happened.
Harold's windows they could see the steady stream of men rushing from Bancroft toward the main gate, and in less time than seemed possible, footsteps were audible yes, a trifle more than audible as "the bunch" came piling up Wilmot's stairway; for the promptitude with which "the Little Mother's boys" responded to "a bid" to Middies' Haven was an unending source of wonder to most people and certainly to her school-girl guests.
Word Of The Day