Brave And True

BRAVE AND TRUE, BY E DAWSON.

"But I say, Martin, tell us about it! My pater wrote to me that you'd done no end of heroic things, and saved Bullace senior from being killed. His pater told him, so I know it's all right. But wasn't it a joke you two should be on the same ship?"

Martin looked up at his old schoolfellow. He had suddenly become a person of importance in the well-known old haunts where he had learned and played only as one of the schoolboys.

"It wasn't much of a joke sometimes," said he. "I thought at first that I was glad to see a face I knew. But there were lots of times after that when I _didn't_ think it."

"Wasn't old Bullfrog amiable, then?"

"He was never particularly partial to me, you know," answered Martin. "The first term I was at school--before you came--I remember I caught him out at a cricket match. He was always so sure of making top score! He called me an impudent youngster in those days."

"He never was too good to you, I remember. I was one of the chaps he let alone."

"Well, he went on calling me an impudent youngster," continued Martin, "and all that sort of thing--and he tried to set the other fellows against me. Oh, it isn't all jam in the Royal Navy! You haven't left school when you go _there_, and the gunroom isn't always just exactly paradise, you know! And if your seniors try to make it hot for you, why--they can!"