“Briblett,” murmured the passenger, dazedly. “That’s my name. Don’t—oh, don’t bother me! I’m ill—ill!”
“’Orace ’as kept out of ’er way all the time, in case some one might ’ave seen ’im up at the station this morning,” whispered Mr. Lock. “She might begin to smell a rat before the bomb goes off, if she starts putting questions to ’im.”
With a certain inconsiderate vigour the two friends half-lifted, half-dragged Mr. Briblett from the boat and assisted him up the steps to the quay.
“A drop o’ brandy is the only thing to do this poor gent any good,” prescribed Mr. Lock, producing a flask.
The stranger, although in a comatose condition, proved true to his lifelong traditions, and feebly waved the stimulant aside.
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Lock, “if ’e won’t drink it, p’r’aps the smell of it might do ’im good!”
Thus speaking, he delicately sprinkled Mr. Briblett’s shoulder with a few drops of the spirit, and then very fraternally shared the remainder with Mr. Clark.
“And now off we goes!” directed Mr. Lock, and, supported by the two sailormen, the cadaverous Mr. Briblett tottered forward on two swerving, unstable legs. Closed were Mr. Briblett’s eyes, and the expression on his face was one of pained indifference to all mundane affairs.
By quiet side-streets was Mr. Briblett conducted to the neighbourhood of the little shop in Fore Street. Rounding a corner, the trio at last reached that emporium. Mr. Lock remembered to knock Mr. Briblett’s hat off for him, retrieving it with sundry muddy adhesions, and replacing it on the sufferer’s head at a rakish angle.
Then the door of Mr. Dobb’s shop flew open, the three lurched over the threshold, and Mr. Dobb quickly flitted in after them from nowhere. A moment later Mr. Clark and Mr. Lock were exhaustedly mopping their foreheads, and their burden, unceremoniously dumped into a chair, was lolling back in his seat, too indisposed even for protest at his treatment.