“He may be afther stroiking yez whin ye’re not lookin’.”
“Such foes are the most dangerous.”
“Thot they are, me b’y. An’ av all suspicions are thrue, ye’d not be th’ firrust wan Joe Hicks has hit in th’ back.”
“How is that?”
“’Sh! It’s divvil a bit anybody loikes to say it around here, an’ ye must kape shtill thot Oi said a wurrud.”
“I’m dumb.”
“Av old Joe wur not a foine ingineer, he’d not hold his job a day, fer there do be times whin he st’ames op wid phwhisky, an’ they have to put a marn in his place. Anybody ilse would lose his job. Old Joe is docked or laid off, at th’ wurust. An’ whin he has pwhisky in, he’s th’ ould imp an’ all.”
Larry looked about, as if making sure there was no one near enough to hear, and then taking a seat on the pilot, and biting off a huge chew of tobacco from a black plug, he went on:
“It wur a year ago old Joe got in his wurrust schrape. It wur thirty days thot cost him, besides th’ toime he wur in jail.”
“So he got into jail?”