“That’s it, captain, darlin’,” he said one day. “Don’t ye fale like a little boy again, and that I’m your mother washing your poor face!”
“Don’t fool, my good fellow, but talk to me.”
“Talk to you, is it?”
“Yes; you can talk to me.”
“Talk to ye—can I talk to ye! Hark at him, mate!” he cried, appealing to the great idol. “Why, I’m a divil at it.”
“Well, then, tell me how I came here.”
“Faix, didn’t I carry ye on my back?”
“Yes, but after the fight?”
“Afther the foight—oh! is it afther the foight ye mane? Sure, and it was the skipper’s ordhers, and I carried ye here, and Bart—you know the tother one—he brought in the bed and the rugs and things to make ye dacent. It’s a bit damp, and the threes have a bad habit of putting in their noses like the pigs at home; but it’s an illigant bed-room for a gintleman afther all.”
“It was the captain’s orders, you say?”