“Well, this is lively sort of talk,” put in Barlow, who was of a melancholy disposition, except when “elevated,” and then he was uproarious to a degree. “Haven’t you two fellows ever heard of the proverb, ‘Many a true word spoken in jest’?”
“If Jack gets hit now at any time, he ought to sue the doctor for big damages,” said Naylor, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
“Or make him put him right for nothing,” said Jim.
“An’ that’s what I’ll do, faith,” said the Irishman, “an’ it’s mighty small he’ll sing when the time comes.”
“You! I wouldn’t have you digging for bullets in me, if I had to carry them for the rest of my natural life,” cried Armitage in withering scorn. “If it came to that I’d send across for old Pollock. A blacksmith’s better than a butcher under those circumstances, and being a Cornishman he might understand lead mining.”
“An’ if it was in your head he had to look for the lead, it’s a bull’s-eye lanthern he’d want, for he’d find it mighty foggy in there, I’m thinkin’,” retorted McShane.
“By Jove, Dennis,” cried Armitage, suddenly, “It’s deuced queer that I never noticed it before; but as you sit there you’re the very image of poor Walker—Obadiah Walker.”
“I am, am I? An’ who the divil is Obadiah Walker?”
“The man who wouldn’t help himself and wouldn’t pass the bottle, though I must say that it’s only in the last particular the likeness holds good.”
“The bottle!” cried McShane, amid the roar that followed, for it was not often that even such an old hand as Jack managed to get a rise out of the astute Milesian. “Is it this one ye mane?” holding it up to the light. “Because, if so, she’s come to an end—as the gossoon said when he slid down the cow’s tail and she kicked him into the praist’s strawberry bed.”