"Very well, then, we will try, Teddy; though I know the whole regiment will think Gerald and I have gone mad, when they hear about it. But I shall keep my eye upon you both."
"The more you keep your eye upon me, the better I shall be plazed, Mrs. O'Halloran; saving your husband's presence," the doctor said, insinuatingly.
"Do sit down and be reasonable, Teddy. There are cigars in that box on the table."
"The tobacco here almost reconciles one to living outside Ireland," Dr. Burke said, as he lit a cigar, and seated himself in one of the comfortable chairs. "Just about a quarter the price they are at home, and brandy at one shilling per bottle. It is lucky for the country that we don't get them at that price, in Ireland; for it is mighty few boys they would get to enlist, if they could get tobacco and spirits at such prices, at home."
"I have been telling Gerald that it will be much better for him to drink claret, out here," Mrs. O'Halloran said.
"And you are not far wrong," the doctor agreed; "but the native wines here are good enough for me, and you can get them at sixpence a quart. I was telling them, at mess yesterday, that we must not write home and tell them about it; or faith, there would be such an emigration that the Rock wouldn't hold the people--not if you were to build houses all over it. Sixpence a quart, and good sound tipple!
"Sure, and it was a mighty mistake of Providence that Ireland was not dropped down into the sea, off the coast of Spain. What a country it would have been!"
"I don't know, Teddy," Captain O'Halloran said. "As the people don't kill themselves with overwork, now, I doubt if they would ever work at all, if they had the excuse of a hot climate for doing nothing."
"There would not have been so much need, Gerald. They needn't have bothered about the thatch, when it only rains once in six months, or so; while as for clothes, it is little enough they would have needed. And the bogs would all have dried up, and they would have had crops without more trouble than just scratching the ground, and sowing in the seed; and they would have grown oranges, instead of praties. Oh, it would have been a great country, entirely!"
The doctor's three listeners all went off into a burst of laughter, at the seriousness with which he spoke.