“You’d better go home, Major. When you try to be facetious you altogether cease to be useful. You know perfectly well that there’s no use talking about importing babies. What would we do with them afterwards? You couldn’t expect young Kerrigan to keep them.”
“I offered to go home some time ago,” said the Major, “and you wouldn’t let me. Now that I’ve heard about young Kerrigan’s twins I mean to stop where I am and see what happens.”
“Very well, Major. Just as you like. As long as you don’t upset Billing by rolling up any of those heavy jokes of yours against him I don’t mind. Here we are. I expect Doyle has Billing in the bar trying to pacify him with whisky. You’d better stay outside, Thady.”
“I’d be glad of a drop then,” said Gallagher wistfully. “After all the talking I did this afternoon——”
“Oh, go in if you like,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Probably the safest thing for you to do is to get drunk. Here’s Billing crossing the street He’s just come out of Kerrigan’s shop. Why on earth Doyle couldn’t have kept him in play till I came.... He’s sure to have found out now that young Kerrigan isn’t married. This will make my explanation far more difficult than it need have been.”
“It will make it impossible, I should imagine,” said the Major.
Mr. Billing, his hands in his coat pockets and a large cigar between his teeth, came jauntily across the street. Dr. O’Grady greeted him.
“Good-evening, Mr. Billing,” he said. “I hope you’ve had a pleasant and satisfactory afternoon.”
Sergeant Colgan and Constable Moriarty came out of the barrack together. They joined the group opposite the hotel. Constable Moriarty was grinning broadly. He had evidently heard some version of the story about young Kerrigan’s twins.
“I am sorry to find,” said the doctor, “that Thady Gallagher made a mistake, and a bad one, this afternoon.”