"See you at the
Show, m' lord, maybe? 'Will drink your lordship's health there,
anyway."
He skipped away up the road towards Tregarrick. In the opposite
direction young Mr. and Mrs. Trudgian could be seen just passing out
of sight, he supporting her with his arm, pausing every now and then,
bending over her uxoriously.
THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP.
I.
"'Erbert 'Enery Bates!"
"Wot cheer!"
It was the morning of Speech-day on board the Industrial Training
Ship _Egeria_--July the 31st, to be precise. At 3 p.m. Sir Felix
Felix-Williams, Baronet, would arrive to distribute the prizes.
He would be attended by a crowd of ladies and gentlemen; and the
speeches, delivered beneath an awning on the upper deck, would be
fully reported next day in the local newspapers. The weather was
propitious.
Just now (11 a.m.) some half a dozen of the elder boys, attired in
dirty white dungaree and barefooted, were engaged in swabbing out
what, in her sea-going days, had been the _Egeria's_ ward-room,
making ready to set out tables for an afternoon tea to follow the
ceremony. They were nominally under supervision of the ship's
Schoolmaster, who, however, had gone off to unpack a hamper of
flowers--the gift of an enthusiastic subscriber.
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