"No, the boy."
I could hold out no hope of this, and he consoled himself with anticipating the time we would spend together at Symonds's. "For if you're invalided home, they'll discharge you on leave as soon as we reach port."
"Unless they keep me in hospital," said I.
"Then you'll have to make a cure of it on the voyage."
"I feel like that, already. But the mischief is I've no home to go to."
"There's Symonds's."
"I might give that as an address, to be sure."
"Damme!" cried Ben, as a bright thought struck him, "why couldn't I adopt you?"
"The lady might find that an inducement," said I modestly.
"I wasn't exactly seeing it in that light," he confessed. "But, with a boy apiece, she and I might start fair. You could punch his head, brother like."