"Mornin', Nicky!"
Nicky-Nan slewed himself about on the bollard, and encountered the genial gaze of Mr Latter, the landlord. Mr Latter, a retired Petty Officer of the Navy, stood six feet two inches in his socks, and carried a stomach which incommoded even that unusual stature. The entrance-door of the Three Pilchards being constructed in two flaps, Mr Latter habitually closed the lower one and eased the upper part of his facade upon it while he surveyed the world.
"Mornin', Nicky!" repeated Mr Latter. "I han't seen ye this couple o' days; but I had word you weren't gone with the rest, your leg bein' so bad. Step indoors, an' rest it over a drink."
"You're very kind, Mr Latter," Nicky-Nan answered somewhat stiffly. "I was just then thinkin' I'd come in and order one for the good o' the house." To himself he added: "One o' these days I'll teach that man to speak to me as 'Mr Nanjivell'—though it come to remindin' him that his wife's mother was my father's wet-nurse, and glad of the job." But this he growled to himself as he hobbled up the steps to the door.
"I didn't say anything about payment," Mr Latter remarked affably, stepping back a pace as he pulled open the flap of the door, and politely suppressing a groan at the removal of that abdominal support. "I was askin' you to oblige me by takin' a drink, seein' as how—"
"Seein' as how what?" Nicky-Nan asked with suppressed fierceness as he pushed his way in, conscious of the ballast in his pocket.
(Wonderful—let it be said again—is the confidence that money carries: subtle and potent the ways by which it asserts itself upon the minds of men!)
—"Seein' as how," Mr Latter corrected himself, drawing back again and giving such room in the passage as his waist allowed—"seein' as how all true patriots should have a fellow-feelin' in times like the present, an' stand shoulder to shoulder, so to speak, not refusin' a drink when offered in a friendly way. It gives a feelin' of solidarity, as one might say. That's the word—solidarity. Still, if you insist," he paused, following Nicky-Nan into the little bar-parlour, "I mustn't say no. The law don't allow me. A two of beer, if I may suggest?"
"Brandy for me!" said Nicky-Nan recklessly. "And a soda."
"Brandy for heroes, as the sayin' is. Which, if Three Star, is sixpence, an' two is a shilling, and a split soda makes one-an'-four. 'Tis a grand beverage, but terrible costly." Mr Latter took down the bottle from its shelf and uncorked it, still with an incredulous eye on Nicky-Nan. "What with the War breakin' out an' takin' away the visitors, an' money certain (as they tell me) to be scarce all over the land, I didn' reckon to sell another glass between this an' Christmas; when in walks you, large as my lord, and calls for a brace! . . . Sure ye mean it?"