"Perhaps you'd like to serve with me in Royal Duke," Hoare whispered to Mr. Prickett. "She's small, and she doesn't go to sea often, but I can offer you a good education. We could use a handy young gentleman."
He could have bit his tongue. However appealing a safe berth of this kind might be to a master of clerical law like Prickett senior, the offer of a good education was no way to appeal to a seven-year-old boy.
For perhaps three seconds Mr. Prickett held his tongue. Then he looked up at Hoare with eyes filled with appeal.
"Oh, sir!" he said. "Must I? I mean, sir… here I am, midshipman six whole months now, but I've never been to sea! I want to go to sea so much, sir! Won't you let me go to sea? Captain Prothero's just offered me a berth in Impetuous! Papa is just now taking me to Deptford, where she lies! Can't I go with him instead? Please, sir?"
The lad had served Hoare well in the Vantage affair. He had become fond of the lad, his ebullience, his open face, his constant motion. It would have been a delight to help him mature into a seasoned sea officer. But, even in command of Royal Duke, he himself was as good as shorebound, as he had just let slip to Mr. Prickett, so how could he train the young gentleman to become a normal serving officer? Why, he would have to take his ship's latitude from the same spot every noon. And, as for longitude-that matter would be nugatory, since Royal Duke lay at Greenwich, the zero meridian. Hoare understood now how a father must feel when his favorite son leaves home to go to sea. It might be as close as he would ever get to knowing.
"Very good, Mr. Prickett. If Prothero's fool enough to want you aboard, he has a right to you."
The younger Mr. Prickett stifled a giggle.
Hoare had made his bow to the father and was about to part company, when the other forestalled him.
"Before we part, sir," he said, "may I beg you to take a dish of tea? To at least that extent, I am indebted to you. The Leaf lies just around the corner. It offers a fine Bohea."
Although he did not know Bohea from Yunnan, Hoare could hardly object. "With pleasure. But I am unaware of any debt you owe me, sir; if anything, the shoe is on the other foot. Your son was an invaluable aide. Had I had a dispatch to write on the subject of the Vantage affair, I should have mentioned him in them."
"Very kind of you, I'm sure," Mr. Prickett said. He took Hoare by the arm and, undisturbed by his son's perpetual motion about them both, escorted him to the Leaf.
When they had been seated and young Prickett's mouth stoppered with a large round sweetish bun, Hoare took the chance to ask for clarification.
"You informed me just now, sir, that me you are in my debt. As I said then, I know of no such thing. Elaborate, I pray." The attorney's stately quality appeared to prompt an equally stately mode of speech on Hoare's part.
"Had it not been for young Harry's attendance on you last summer," Mr. Prickett answered, "he would not have strayed into the inn yard and contracted the stable-boy's mumps. But for the mumps, he would have remained aboard Vantage when she sailed to join Lord Nelson, and would have been lost with her."
" 'The house that Jack built,' it seems to me, sir, if you will forgive me. My role in Harry's mumps was only casual. Rather than making a thank offering to me, would it not be appropriate to slaughter an ox before the altar of the Fates?"
As he spoke, Hoare realized he had just abandoned his synthetic stateliness of speech. Had he erred? No; the other nodded.
"You are perfectly correct, sir. Truth to tell, the reason I gave you was no more than a thin crust on top of a much juicier pie. I ask your forgiveness for the deception."
Mr. Prickett paused to await Hoare's reaction. Hoare took advantage of his own muteness, sat back and waited for the next disclosure.
"As it happens, Captain Hoare, I am an advocate in Admiralty law as well as a canon lawyer. Expertise in canon law alone, I found long ago, is no longer in demand sufficient to support a large and hopeful family. So now, while we reside not far from Canterbury and my related duties call for my regular presence in Lambeth, I actually spend at least as much time in Whitehall.
"It is in the latter connection that I took advantage of the fortuitous meeting young Harry unwittingly arranged. In fact, I had already been requested to-ah-curry-acquaintance with you. I prefer to be forthright, however, whenever circumstances permit. I believe that to be the case now.
"To make a long story short, Captain Hoare, you are being considered for a post which might be more permanent and more to your advantage than the one you presently occupy, and I, with others, have been charged with examining you… informally, that is. May I proceed?"
"Of course, sir," Hoare whispered. "But if the interview is to be a long one, will your son be willing to sit still?"
"Long since, Mrs. Prickett and I taught all our young to be silent and invisible at table. Otherwise, neither she nor I would have retained our sanity. We are at table now, Harry, you understand?"
Mr. Prickett the younger nodded. His gob-stopper was long since gone, but the gob in question remained stopped, as if the child were the mute, and not the man.
Thereupon, the father subjected Hoare to a barrage of questions about himself, his brother in Melton Mowbray, his Hoares, and his father's politics (here, Hoare could say nothing, for Captain Joel was mumchance about his doings as a member of Parliament). This was Hoare's second such inquisition today, and it was becoming irritating. He determined to bear up.
As the advocate proceeded, he unabashedly disclosed considerable previous knowledge of Hoare's own affairs; thus, he knew of the source from which Hoare had derived his own capitaclass="underline" the prize money from his capture of a specie-laden American privateer in September '81, while he was the sole remaining officer in the brig Beetle. After the navy had bought in the prize and the Halifax prize agent had done his duty for a change, Hoare had become the richer by,?6,127 plus five shillings and eight pence. Shocked into good sense, the young man had promptly invested the amount in the Funds and left it at Barclays Bank to grow in peace. It had only been in '03 that he had dipped into capital in order to buy the neat little pinnace that now dawdled astern of Royal Duke.
All these things Mr. Prickett had known beforehand; about none of them had he a comment, save one, which bore upon Hoare's financial windfall.
"You, sir, profited by a legal technicality on that occasion, as I surely need not tell you. I venture to urge that the experience not lead you to seek out other technicalities by whose advantage you might hope to rise further. For you, that would be gambling. Leave that sort of thing to us lawyers."
With that cryptic caution, Mr. Prickett rose, gave his son permission to unstop his gob, brushed down his nonexistent apron, paid the reckoning, and ushered Hoare from the Leaf.
"A most enjoyable occasion," he said. "I look forward to continuing our acquaintance."
"Harry said you were taking him to join Prothero in Impetuous," Hoare responded. "If I'm not mistaken, she lies in Deptford just now. That's near Greenwich. You and he would be most welcome aboard Royal Duke at any time."
"Very kind, sir. It will be our pleasure. Come, Harry; we must be off."
"Sir Hugh will see you directly, Captain Hoare," the clerk Cratchit said. He looked amazed; evidently, his exalted master did not commonly stoop to receive mute commanders who merely "happened to be in the neighborhood and thought they would drop in for a chat."
Some half an hour later, when the admiral's scurry of messengers had ceased, his bass call summoned Hoare within. The room had not changed. Sir Hugh was still sitting, smoking, reading swiftly and dropping each page to the carpet as he finished it. A disorderly white drift of discards lay at his feet. Once, he coughed heavily. He did not look well. He stopped reading long enough to say, "Sit, sir. Well?"