The youth now felt himself at home, and speedily convinced his examiners that, however ignorant he might be of the classics, he was a match for any of them at cards! He was passed, and despatched to Portsmouth to embark on an Indiaman ready to sail with the first fair wind; but as there seemed no likelihood of this for some days, the person who had charge of him put him on board and returned to town. Needless to say, Mordaunt at once got away to shore, where he played a number of pranks before the ship eventually set sail. On arriving at Madras young Mordaunt was received with open arms by all his countrymen; but General Sir John Clavering, who was then Commander-in-Chief in India, and who was, accordingly, second on the council at Calcutta, having promised to provide for him, Mordaunt went on to Bengal, where he was appointed an honorary aide-de-camp to that officer, still retaining his rank on the Madras establishment. In consequence of this he was afterwards subjected to much ill-will. The young soldier unfortunately was quite uneducated, not being able even to write an ordinary letter without making many mistakes. Study was little to his taste, and he made scarcely any effort to remedy this disadvantage or improve himself. Nevertheless, he excelled in most things which he undertook entirely by natural intuition. His ignorance of writing was the more remarkable as he spoke English with an excellent diction and even refinement of phrase, though he could not write two lines of it correctly. He spoke the Hindoo language fluently, and was a tolerable Persian scholar. Mordaunt's weakness as a writer was once strikingly demonstrated on an occasion where a friend, having borrowed a horse from him for a day or two, wrote to ask if he might keep it a little longer. The Colonel's reply was, "You may kip the hos as long as you lick." Subjected to a good deal of chaff on account of this failing, which he himself realised, Mordaunt was generally very good-tempered, though quick with an answer when any one he did not care for attempted to make him a butt. On one occasion a very worthy young gentleman of the name of James P----, who was rather of the more silly order of beings, thinking he could take the liberty of playing with, or rather upon him, called out to Mordaunt, before a large party, desiring him to say what was the Latin for a goose. The answer was brief. "I don't know the _Latin_ for it, but the _English_ is _James P----_."