"
"I should say the sooner the better, lad. You will have to get your
outfit and other matters seen to. Moreover, now that you have been
taken under Prince Rupert's protection, and have become, as it were,
an officer on his ship--for gentlemen Volunteers, although they have
no duties in regard to working the ship, are yet officers--it is
hardly seemly that you should be making up the accounts of bakers and
butchers, ironmongers, and ship's storekeepers."
"The work is honest, and I am in no way ashamed of it," Cyril said;
"but as I have many things to see about, I suppose I had better give
them notice at once. Prince Rupert presented me to the King to-day,
and His Majesty requested me to attend at Court, which I should be
loath to do, were it not that the Prince urged upon me that it was of
advantage that I should make myself known."
"One would think, Master Cyril, that this honour which has suddenly
befallen you is regarded by you as a misfortune," Mrs. Dowsett said,
laughing. "Most youths would be overjoyed at such a change in their
fortune."
"It would be all very pleasant," Cyril said, "had I the income of my
father's estate at my back; but I feel that I shall be in a false
position, thus thrusting myself among men who have more guineas in
their pockets than I have pennies. However, it seems that the matter
has been taken out of my own hands, and that, as things have turned
out, so I must travel. Who would have thought, when John Wilkes
fetched me out last night to go to the fire, it would make an
alteration in my whole life, and that such a little thing as climbing
up a ladder and helping to get three girls out of a room full of
smoke--and John Wilkes did the most difficult part of the work--was
to change all my prospects?"
"There was a Providence in it, Cyril," Mrs.
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