“And then off to the hotel, and you bet your pile, as we used to say at Chokeneck Gulch, we'll have more than a pint bottle of Bass. By the way, how about your bronze; does the good old governor still stump up?”
“My allowance goes regularly to Australia,” said Os win, with a stern look coming to his face.
“And where else should it go, my boy? By the way, that's a tidy female that showed what neat ankles she had as Marie. By my soul, I envied you squeezing her. 'What right has he to squeeze her?' I said to myself, and then I thought if——”
“But you haven't told me how you came here,” said Oswin, interrupting him.
“No more I did. It's easily told, my lad. It was getting too warm for me in Melbourne, and as I had still got some cash I thought I'd take a run to New York city—at least that's what I made up my mind to do when I awoke one fine morning in the cabin of the Virginia brig a couple of hundred miles from Cape Howe. I remembered going into a saloon one evening and finding a lot of men giving general shouts, but beyond that I had no idea of anything.”
“That's your usual form,” said Oswin. “So you are bound for New York?”
“Yes, the skipper of the Virginia had made Natal one of his ports, and there we put in yesterday, so I ran up to this town, under what you would call an inspiration, or I wouldn't be here now ready to slip the tinsel from as many bottles of genuine Moët as you choose to order. But you—what about yourself?”
“I am here, my Hal, to order as many bottles as you can slip the tinsel off,” cried Oswin, his face flushed more deeply than when it had been rouged before the footlights.
“Spoken in your old form, by heavens!” cried the other, leaping from the table. “You always were a gentleman amongst us, and you never failed us in the matter of drink. Hang me if I don't let the Virginia brig—go—to—to New York without me; I'll stay here in company of my best friend.”
“Come along,” said Oswin, leaving the room. “Whether you go or stay we'll have a night of it at the hotel.”