"If you have," Mr. Jacob Potts replied, with something which sounded threatening in his tone, "you're welcome. If so be that you've any other reason for your coming, maybe a word of advice from me wouldn't be out of place, and that word's git."
"When we've seen the scrap and not before," Cresswell chuckled. "Do you know that it cost the best part of a quid to get down here, guv'nor? Bring 'em in and let's see what stuff they're made of."
Jacob Potts looked at the speaker doubtfully.
"You've 'ad a drop, young fellow, you 'ave," he muttered.
"Trenchantly and convincingly put, old chap," the poet replied, steadying himself by the back of the chair. "My dear friend and I are making an evening of it."
Mr. Potts' face cleared a little.
"Boys will be boys," he assented amiably, "and there's none of you the worse for a drop o' good liquor on board. Fact is I'm a bit jumpy to-night," he confessed. "My boys have got a little game on—to-night of all nights! Did you happen to notice," he asked anxiously, "if that goll-darned Dutchman was down there?"
"There is a son of Holland in the bar," the poet replied, "in a glorious state of inebriation. He is seeking for some one to destroy. Tell you the truth, we fled before him. His eye rested upon us and he scowled."
Mr. Jacob Potts lifted a blind and stared out towards the river.
"That's his steamer lying there," he muttered. "I wish to God he'd get aboard her!"