and if the tea is cold it is your loss, not ours. Now, my boy, as
soon as you have washed your hands we will have tea."

It was a simple meal, thick slices of bread and butter and tea,
for Mrs. Hargate could only afford to put meat upon the table once
a day, and even for that several times in the week fish was substituted,
when the weather was fine and the fishing boats returned, when well
laden. Frank fortunately cared very little what he ate, and what
was good enough for his mother was good enough for him. In his
father's lifetime things had been different, but Captain Hargate
had fallen in battle in New Zealand. He had nothing besides his
pay, and his wife and children had lived with him in barracks until
his regiment was ordered out to New Zealand, when he had placed
his wife in the little cottage she now occupied. He had fallen in
an attack on a Maori pah, a fortnight after landing in New Zealand.
He had always intended Frank to enter the military profession, and
had himself directed his education so long as he was at home.

The loss of his father had been a terrible blow for the boy, who
had been his constant companion when off duty. Captain Hargate had
been devoted to field sports and was an excellent naturalist. The
latter taste Frank had inherited from him. His father had brought
home from India--where the regiment had been stationed until it
returned for its turn of home service four years before he left
New Zealand--a very large quantity of skins of birds which he
had shot there. These he had stuffed and mounted, and so dexterous
was he at the work, so natural and artistic were the groups of
birds, that he was enabled to add considerably to his income by
sending these up to the shop of a London naturalist. He had instructed
Frank in his methods, and had given him one of the long blowguns