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Updated: May 22, 2025
"I saw my brother soon after Cronje was captured at Paardeberg. I was ashore in Cape Town one evening taking a walk with the Second, just to get out of sight of the ship for an hour, when he pulls my sleeve and says he: "'I say, Chief, you remember that new mess-man you got in B. A.? That Lord? Well, ain't that him over there. You remember, don't you?
'Don't tantalise wid talkin' av dhrink, or I'll shtuff you into your own breech-block an' fire you off! grunted Mulvaney. Ortheris chuckled, and from a niche in the veranda produced six bottles of gingerade. 'Where did ye get ut, ye Machiavel? said Mulvaney. ''Tis no bazar pop. ''Ow do Hi know wot the Orf'cers drink? answered Ortheris. 'Arst the mess-man.
The mess-man had done his best; a tent-maker had come down from town to build a canvas hall, draped red and white; and a local man had fitted the marquee with gas and floor complete for a supper-room. Tempting refreshments were provided, and a nurseryman had contrived a natural garden here and there, not forgetting to make a cosy nest for the band.
The second cabin steward, who roomed with him, and a couple of impressionable apprentices, were forever bringing up new variations of the doings of 'that new mess-man. They told a tale of how he had run through a fortune in no time and had been compelled to run away from his creditors. How?
"I left in a huff, I suppose, and went back to the ship. I felt badly used. The Old Man came along to my room and spent a couple of hours telling me how that new mess-man had won ten thousand francs. There were all sorts of frills to the story as he knew it. One of the clerks at the agent's had told him that the man was an English milord. That was a bit of my brother's cleverness.
I used to wonder what he was thinking about while he stood waiting on us, listening to our engine-room gossip, our talk of ships and the sea. Most of it must have been Greek to him, of course. If I stole a look at him, he would glance round the table, as though I had asked for something. It got on my mind. "And a better mess-man never stepped, they said. Nothing was too much trouble.
"If you once begin there is no end to it, they are sure to encroach. He just sends them a basket of game at the beginning and end of the season." "By the bye," said Raymond, "I hope ours have all been sent out as usual." "I can answer for a splendid one at our wedding breakfast," said Rosamond. "The mess-man who came to help was lost in admiration. Did you breakfast on ortolans, Cecil?"
And the old man himself heard a fantastic yarn from somewhere or other and handed it on to me, that 'your new mess-man' had been in the diplomatic service and had been broken 'on account of a woman' at one of these here embassies. 'No! I said. 'Oh, quite likely, says the Old Man, though I doubt if he knew any more of embassies than of metaphysics.
He had an electric fan, which for want of screws had tumbled into his wash-basin and cracked it. 'That new mess-man' had taken the fan away and jiggered with it until it ran as sweet as ever, and he'd got some cement and fixed the basin, and made a fine job of it! This was the Second telling me all about it. And he thought this paragon was a lord.
"Don't tantalize wid talkin' av dhrink, or I'll shtuff you into your own breech-block an' fire you off!" grunted Mulvaney. Ortheris chuckled, and from a niche in the veranda produced six bottles of ginger ale. "Where did ye get ut, ye Machiavel?" said Mulvaney. "'Tis no bazar pop." "'Ow do Hi know wot the Orf'cers drink?" answered Ortheris. "Arst the mess-man."
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