Real Soldiers of Fortune by Richard Harding Davis
page 99 of 163 (60%)
page 99 of 163 (60%)
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with bed, tables, chairs, sideboards, lounges, stove for kitchen. I
have grates (American) in the room, but I don't need them. We have snow, and a good deal of ice in winter, but the thermometer never gets below zero. I have to supply my own crockery. I will have two servants and cook; I will only get one and the cook first--they only cost $4 to $5.50 per month, and their board amounts to very little. I can get along, don't you think so? Now I want you to get Jim to pack up all my professional works on gunnery, surveying, seamanship, mathematics, astronomy, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, conic sections, calculus, mechanics, and _every_ book of that description I own, including those paperbound 'Naval Institute' papers, and put them in a box, together with any photos, etc., you think I would like--I have none of you or Pa or the family (including Carrie)--and send to me. "I just got in in time--didn't I? Another week would have been too late. My funds were getting low; I would not have had _anything_ before long. The U. S. Consul, General Bromley, is much pleased. The interpreter says it was all in the way I did with the Viceroy in the interview. "I will have a chance to go to Peking and later to a tiger hunt in Mongolia, but for the present I am going to study, work, and _stroke_ these mandarins till I get a raise. I am the only instructor in both seamanship and gunnery, and I must know _everything_, both practically and theoretically. But it will be good for me and the only thing is, that if I were put back into the Navy I would be in a dilemma. I think I will get my 'influence' to work, and I want you people at home to look out, and in case I _am_--if it were represented to the Sec. that my position here was giving me an |
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