Show TATTOOED THE PRINCE A Laughable Story of the Heir to the British Crown I have made the acquaintance of such a quaint clever old retired sea captain with great black eyes and snowwhite hair and mustache He had been the world over several times and there seems to be nothing noth-ing nor nobody which and whom he has not seen or known Just now we are so intimatenewspaper intimatewith the Princo of Wales and his doings perhaps an anecdote which the cap ain told me of George tho Princes second son may be amusing I The captain some years ago was in San Francisco with his ship It was chartered II by a big manufacturing company to go to New South Wales whore the captain was to buy 2000 tons of a certain celebrated bituminous coal says the Now York Journal Jour-nal for which the company contracted to pay Satan delivered in San Francisco He arrived safely and put up at the finest hotel in Sydney At this hotel were stay ing the Duke of Edinburgh with his nephew a son of the Prince of Wales and young Gladstone a nephew of the groat statesman They were then taking a trip around the world the boys in the care of the Duke of Edinburgh who commanded the ship My sea captain made their acquaintance and dined with tlem the first day of his arrival ar-rival Ho told the boys some of his jollicst stories and they took to each other immensely im-mensely but strange to tell he did not catch a vestige of them for the next two weeks One day they appeared again suddenly seized the captain by the hand and insisted upon his going immediately to join them in a glass of champagne in honor of the moot ing ngWhere on earth have you been hiaingl asked the captain In bed answered the Prince with a sound halfgroan halfchuckle and its all the fault of that longlegged beast Tom Nolan Then the young Gladstone put in a naughty word and rapped out Yes the beggar declared that we would heal up in a day Id like the thrash him but his back is a yard across and I could not knock Mm down you know if I tried What the dickens did he do to you 1 Why see here said the Prince and the captain putting on his spectacles discovered discov-ered that the Princes under lip had been tattooed with the royal broad arrow while young Gladstones lip was similarly decorated with an anchor two lovely fast dye embellishments which would last all 1 their lives Choking with suppressed laughter the captain said The old salt has done his work well but this need not have kept you in bed two weeks Oh bless you no said the Prince bu you know he coaxed us into having dolphins and mermaids and mottoes pretty much allover all-over us and oh I its abominable you know for we were soon laid out as stiff as ramrods ram-rods and howling with pain It dont matter mat-ter now its all over added the Prince rather ruefully but by George 1 Ill never be caught in such a trumpetry again Nor Icnimed in young Gladstone with an emphatic bang of his fist on the table but the worst of it is you know that w e shall be dancing and flirting at balls and praying in church with all these ridiculou mermaids and idiotic whatacallems prancing pranc-ing round with us all along the line George has made a royal jackass of himself him-self and I amA am-A radical jackass laughed the captain And the signs of it will last forever You will havo to dance and pray and offer yourselves your-selves to your sweethearts mermaids and all for better for worse Then he made a solemn grimace at them and the all burst out laughing and the boys invited him to inspect the splendid ship in which they were steaming over the world and while there the captain put the youngest up to playing some high jinks upon the old bailor who had persuaded them to be tattooed by way of an awful retribution A day or two after the great ship steamed away and the captain having loaded the ship with the coal he was to get set sail for California Ho told me with an irresistable wink that ho bought the coal for S3 a ton Two dol lars more covered every expense to the door of the great manufactory3o the result was a tidy little fortune for the captain Some years afterward ho was in Yoko hama and left it at night by getting on board a shin bound for California In the morning he rose early to watch tho fast re ceding shores of Japan A tall handsome young man came outof his stateroom at the same moment in his dressingrobe Hello I ho cried why If here aint my dear old captain I How are you So glad to meet you again 1 The puzzled captain looked at the young man in a vain hope to recognize him who the other lifting a splendid mustache disclosed dis-closed a tattooed anchor on his lip Oh now i know you 1 You are Gladstone Glad-stone What a big goodlooking fellow you are to be sure All you see of me laughed the other My friends the mermaids and mottoes still cling closer than a brother and under my clothes Im a show for your circus friend Barnum But come with me and drink a goodby champagne cup to Japan And then they went over tbs New South Wales adventure and had a most enjoyablE jolly chat together Sau Francisco Exam ill cr |