Carnac smiled. “You might be my grandfather, William,” he said.
“Personally, I’m a shearer that’s havin’ a very mild sort of spree and knockin’ down his cheque most careful. You’ve bin aboard a ship, ain’t you, Garstang?”
“D’you suppose I swam out to this blanky country?” said the crooked-featured gentleman.
“Then you’re a sailor that’s bin paid off and taken your discharge.”
Carnac had his hand on the latch of the door through which Dolphin had disappeared.
“No, no; you go out the back way,” said William, who conducted the man in the velvet coat into the back yard, and turned him into a paddock full of cabbages, whence he might find his way as best he could to the roadway.
When the youthful William returned, Garstang was smoking; his elbows on the table, and his ugly head resting in his hands.
“You seem bloomin’ comfortable, Garstang.”
“I’d be a darn sight more comfortabler for a drop of grog, William.”
William took a bottle from beneath his bed.