The wedding was a glorious success, and I did think that Milly or any
other girl ought to be jolly proud of such a husband as Captain Helston.
He looked splendid, though his left arm was still almost helpless, and
made a speech at the lunch afterwards; and dear old Toddles--he had
managed to get away too--had to reply for the ladies, and we all enjoyed
ourselves, except Toddles, who was red and angry for the rest of the
day.
Dr. Fox was there, quite genial, for a wonder, and Captain Williams and
Mr. Saunderson, and Mr. Parker and Mr. Lang, now both of them
commanders.
Mr. Pattison had gone on the Australian station (I felt very sorry for
him), but Captain Cummins was there, and made an awfully funny speech,
and then went off without saying good-bye to anybody.
Toddles and I managed to fasten a couple of white shoes on the carriage
with wire, so that they couldn't get them off, and we made a splendid
noise when Captain Helston and Milly drove away.
In the evening Toddles and I went to a theatre--Captain Helston had
given us a box all to ourselves--and we did wish that Mellins could have
been with us. We had a ripping time. Toddles forgot all about the
speech, and we managed to catch the last trains back--he to Portsmouth
and I to Portland. He was much more lucky than I was, for his ship was
alongside the jetty, and he only had to walk aboard, whilst I had to
take a shore boat and pull two miles off to the ship, getting on board
at two in the morning, wet through, and had to be up again by six
o'clock, as I happened to be signal-midshipman for the week.
I never heard anything more of Ping Sang, though I believe he sent
Captain Helston and Dr. Fox two expensive Chinese jars; but about three
months after the wedding both Toddles and I got letters from A Tsi, and
he sent us each a very quaint carved ivory junk.
We were both jolly pleased with these, and Toddles says he intends
handing his junk down to his children as an heirloom.
* * * * * * * *
[Transcriber's note: the source book had running headings on its
odd-numbered pages. In this etext, those headings have been
combined into an introductory paragraph at the start of each
chapter.]