“Good-morning to you, mister,” he said, nodding as Harwood came, as if by chance, beside him.
“Ah, how do you do?” said Harwood. “Enjoying your morning smoke, I see. Well, I hope you are nothing the worse for your plunge yesterday.”
“No, sir, nothing; I only hope that Missy out there will be as sound. I don't think they insisted on her drinking enough afterwards.”
“Ah, perhaps not. Your friend Markham has not come down yet, they tell me.”
“He was never given to running ties with the sun,” said Mr. Despard.
“He told me you were a particular friend of his in Australia?” continued Mr. Harwood.
“Yes, men very soon get to be friends out there; but Oswin and myself were closer than brothers in every row and every lark.”
“Of which you had, no doubt, a good many?
“A good few, yes; a few that wouldn't do to be printed specially as prizes for young ladies' boarding-schools—not but what the young ladies would read them if they got the chance.”
“Few fellows would care to write their autobiographies and go into the details of their life,” said Harwood. “I suppose you got into trouble now and again?”