However, I shan't have a great deal of it.

But you shall act as my secretary when necessary." The earl's orders to the tailors were peremptory to lose no time in fitting Jack with an undress suit, and in twenty-four hours he was able to join the mess of the young officers and volunteers who accompanied the general.

These were all young men of good family; and having heard how Jack had saved the ship from mutiny, they received him among them with great heartiness, which was increased when they found that he was well educated and the son of a gentleman.
It was a great satisfaction to Jack, that owing to the kindness and generosity of the earl, he was able to pay his expenses at mess and to live on equal terms with them; for the general had dropped a purse with a hundred guineas into his hand, saying: "This will be useful to you, lad, for you must live like the other officers.

I owe it to you many times over for having saved me that regiment, upon whose equipment and fitting out I had spent well nigh a hundred times that sum." Some of the officers were but little older than Jack, and by the time the ship dropped anchor in the Tagus he was quite at home with them.
"What a lovely city!" he said as he leaned over the bulwark and looked at the town standing on the steep hills sloping down to the river.
"Yes, indeed," Graham, one of the young officers, agreed.

"But I fancy the Portuguese are but poor creatures.