"Ah! Thash where you're wrong; she ain't in—see?" Marr wagged his head, and leered the profoundest sagacity. "She ain't in. What's more, 'ow d'you know she ever will come in, eh? 'Ow d'ye know that? Thash one for ye, ole f'ler! Whar'll ye bet me she ever gets as far as—but I say, I say; I say, y'know, you're all right, ain't you? Qui' sure you're orrigh'?"
There was a new and a longer chorus of reassurance, which Dan at last ended with: "Go on; the Juno ain't ever to come back; is that it?"
Marr turned and stared fishily at him for some seconds. "Wha'rr you mean?" he demanded, at length, with a drivelling assumption of dignity. "Wha'rr you mean? N-never come back? Nishe remark make 'spectable shipowner! Whassor' firm you take us for, eh?"
The blind fiddler stopped midway in a flourish and pursed his lips silently. Dan looked quickly at the fiddler, and as quickly back at the drunken man. Marr's attitude and the turn of his head being favourable, the woman quietly detached his watch.
"Whassor' firm you take us for?" he repeated. "D'ye think 'cause we're—'cause I come here—'cause I come 'ere an'——" he stopped foolishly, and tailed off into nothing, smiling uneasily at one and another.
The woman held up the watch behind him—a silver hunter, engraved with Marr's chief initial—a noticeably large letter M. Dan saw it, shook his head and frowned, pointed and tapped his own breast pocket, all in a moment. And presently the woman slipped the watch back into the pocket it came from.
"'Ere, 'ave another drink," said Dan hospitably. "'Ave another all round for the last, 'fore the fiddler goes. 'Ere y'are, George, reach out."
"Eh?" ejaculated the fiddler. "Eh? I ain't goin'! Didn't the genelman ask me to come along? Come, I'll give y' a toon. I'll give y' a chant as 'll make yer 'air curl!"
"Take your drink, George," Dan insisted, "we don't want our 'air curled."
The fiddler groped for and took the drink, swallowed it, and twangled the fiddle-strings. "Will y'ave Black Jack?" he asked.