“Of course,” said Jack.
With his bride on his arm Joe went down the aisle to the men of his drive, to have his right hand almost permanently disabled in the grips he received; but the pressure of the big hands that closed bashfully around Jack’s slim fingers would not have crushed a butterfly. “Wishin’ ye good luck an’ happiness, ma’am,” was the formula, but little varied.
Into the midst of them came old Bill Crooks. “Come on, boys!” he exclaimed. “There’s a wedding spread up at my house, and I want every man of you there to drink good luck to the bride—and to the new firm of Crooks & Kent. No holding back, now. Come along, everybody!”
They came along, though most of them would have preferred to go down a bad piece of water on a single stick of pine, and their coming taxed the space of Crooks’s dining-room—to say nothing of the commissariat and canteen—to the limit. They ate and drank solemnly, on their best behaviour and conscious of it, sipping the unaccustomed wines with reserved judgment.
“What’ll be a dose of this?” whispered Regan, eying his champagne glass with suspicion. “The waitin’ gyurls fill it up whenever I empty it. This makes five I’ve had and I can’t feel it yet. Belike it acts suddint. I wouldn’t want to get full here.”
“Nor me,” Cooley agreed. “They’re all drinkin’ it, an’ none the worse. If they can stand it we can.” He gulped down half a glass and thrust his tongue back and forth experimentally. “Champagne, hey? It has a puckery taste till it, but no rasp. It might be hard cider wid more fizz. There’s no harm in it. I cud drink enough of it to float a log. Here’s some lad speakin’. Listen to what he says.”
They heard the health of the bride proposed in customary language; Joe’s reply, embarrassed, jerky, brief.
“Speaking isn’t Kent’s strong point,” a guest commented. Cooley glowered at him, resentful of the just criticism.
“He can talk when he has anything to say, and he can curse fine!” he affirmed. He led vociferous cheers as Joe sat down, and cheered almost equally hard when Crooks concluded five minutes of pointed remarks in which he announced the formation of the new firm.
But these cheers were as nothing to the leather-lunged roars that bade Jack and Joe farewell as they stepped into the carriage. With the cheers came showers of rice. Joe turned up his coat collar; but Jack laughed back through the fusillade of it, blowing kisses to her father, her girl friends, and the rivermen, impartially. And the memory of them stayed with the rough shantymen for years.