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Updated: June 24, 2025
"I put into Alexandria some ten months ago to get some repairs done, and I remember that your father undertook them." He beckoned to a lad of about the same age as Edgar. "Mr. Wilkinson," he said, "you may take this young gentleman, Mr. Blagrove, down to the cockpit and introduce him to your messmates. He is entered on board the ship as a midshipman by Sir Sidney Smith's orders."
"Who is going to command the craft that you have bought for your father, Blagrove?" "I have persuaded the captain of that store-ship that came in yesterday to let me have his second officer for two or three months. She is likely to be here some time; and if we have luck, and his mate gets a return passage soon after he arrives in England, he may be back again in six weeks.
You may as well tell us that part first." Early in the afternoon Wilkinson arrived. As Edgar had spoken warmly of his kindness to him when he had first joined the Tigre, and of the friendship that had sprung up between them, he was very cordially received by Mr. and Mrs. Blagrove.
Blagrove, saying that as he has been for years engaged in trade in the East, and must therefore be acquainted with the value of these things, is in the habit of sending Egyptian silks and so on to London for sale, he must know the channels in which they could be best disposed of.
He was a pupil of Kreutzer and of Spohr, and held the position of director and first violinist of the royal band at Stuttgart. He had a number of excellent pupils, of whom John T. Carrodus was the best known. He died at Stuttgart in 1869. Henry Gamble Blagrove was a musical prodigy, who began the study of the violin at the age of four, and appeared in public a year later.
Edgar gave the orders as laid down in the text-book, for after the narrow escape they had had, he and Wilkinson had especially learnt these by heart. "Very good indeed, Mr. Blagrove." Two or three questions in navigation were then asked, and these were also answered well, as they had found it absolutely necessary to be able to find their exact position when cruising in such dangerous waters.
"I should have asked you to dinner on the day that you came on board, Mr. Blagrove," Sir Sidney said kindly, as the two midshipmen entered, "but I thought that you might prefer my not doing so until you got your uniform. It has been some privation for myself, for I am anxious to hear from you some details as to what has been doing in Egypt, of which, of course, we know next to nothing at home."
Blagrove said to his son: "I think, Edgar, that as things have quieted down, and we are all beginning to hope that the scare was altogether unfounded, it would be just as well that you should ride over to your friends in the desert, stay the night there, and come back to-morrow.
"Very well," Condor said, sitting down again, "you are safe for a day or two; but mind, the first time I get an opportunity I will give you the soundest thrashing that you ever had." "I am sorry that it must be postponed," Edgar said quietly, "but I daresay it will keep." "Come on deck, Blagrove," Wilkinson said, putting his arm into that of Edgar.
The first lieutenant presently sent for Edgar to come to the quarter-deck. "I quite understand, Mr. Blagrove, that although you are given a midshipman's rating, it is really as an interpreter that Sir Sidney Smith has engaged you. Would you wish to perform midshipman's duties also?
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