All that day Dennis continued to receive his instalments of that bitter instruction in the ways of heedless employers and suspicious subordinates which, eased by a native good humor, conclude in the philosopher, or, unrelieved by this genial mollient, develop the cynic.
By evening he was compelled to admit, as he retraced his steps to The Stag, that he had not advanced in any way.
As he was about to pass under one of the dripping extensions of the elevated, a great splotch of grease detached itself from the ironwork and struck, with unerring precision, directly in the center of dickey No. 2.
“Ah!” exclaimed Dennis as he realized the nature of his mishap, “that settles it; I’ll know what the Sepoy said to-night.” A remark which proved conclusively that the philosophical element was still uppermost in the mind of this young Irishman.
After a brief exchange of courtesies with his countryman behind the bar, and a dinner so modest in the rear room as to arouse the suspicion and encourage the displeasure of the waiter, Dennis hastened up the stairway, divested himself of his upper garments, ripped off dickey bosom No. 2, and began.
CHAPTER III
As the Sepoy proceeded, Raikes leaned forward in an attitude, the discomfort and unbalance of which he seemed to be entirely unaware.
His only means of maintaining his rigid poise was in the arm which lay, with tense unrest, upon the table.