"Me kingdom for a drink!" said Pat. "Oh, the sweet, blessed, gurgling sound!" and striding to the table he mixed a gargantuan peg.
Arthur and I met behind Pat's back and he held out his hand to me, biting his lower lip.
"We've behaved abominably, old soul," he said.
The big guardsman turned round and raised his glass on high.
"Here's to the sweetest and most lovely lady in the world, bedad!" he shouted, accentuating his Irish brogue. "May the best man win her, fair fight, and no favors, and may the Queen of Heaven and all the saints watch over the little darlint and guide her choice aright!"
So all our midnight madness passed like a fleeting cloud. An extraordinary accession of high spirits came to us as we pledged the dark-haired maiden from Brazil. And it was Pat, dear old Pat, who welded us together in a league of chivalry against which nothing was ever to prevail.
"Tom," he said, "Arthur—we are all like brothers, we always have been. Let there be no change in that, now or ever. I have something to propose."
"Go on, Pat," said Arthur.
"Sure then, since we all love the same lady, that ought to bind us more together than anything else has ever done. But since we cannot all marry her, let us agree, in the first place, that no outsider ever shall."
"Hurrah!" said Arthur—I could see that he was fearfully excited—throwing his glass into the fireplace with a crash.