“I’ll have a cup of coffee at breakfast,” said Jack; “thank you all the same, Thomas.”
“Right you are, Jack!” said Thomas. “Mary!” he roared at the girl, “chuck yerself about and get breakfast, and make a strong cup of coffee; and I say, missus” (to his wife), “git some honey and vinegar in a cup, will yer? or see if there’s any of that cough stuff left in the bottle. Go into the kitchen, you chaps, and dry yourselves at the fire, you’re wringing wet.”
Jack went through into the kitchen. I stepped out to see if the horses were all right, and as I came in again through the bar, Thomas, who had slipped behind the counter, crooked his finger at me and poured out a stiff whisky. “I thought you might like to have it on the quiet,” he whispered, with a wink.
Now, there was this difference between Jack and me. When I was on the track, and healthy and contented, I could take a drink, or two drinks, and then leave it; or at other times I could drink all day, or all night, and be as happy as a lord, and be mighty sick and repentant all next day, and then not touch drink for a week; but if Jack once started, he was a lost man for days, for weeks, for, months—as long as his cash or credit lasted. I felt a cold coming on me this morning, and wanted a whisky, so I had a drink with Thomas. Then, of course, I shouted in my turn, keeping an eye out in case Jack should come in. I went into the kitchen and steamed with Jack for a while in front of a big log fire, taking care to keep my breath away from him. Then we went in to breakfast. Those two drinks were all I meant to have, and we were going right on after breakfast.
It was a good breakfast, ham and eggs, and we enjoyed it. The two whiskies had got to work. I hadn’t touched drink for a long time. I shouldn’t like to say that Thomas put anything in the drink he gave me. Before we started breakfast he put a glass down in front of me and said:
“There’s a good ginger-ale, it will warm you up.”
I tasted it; it was rum, hot. I said nothing. What could I say?
There was some joke about Jack being married and settled and steadied down, and me, his old mate, still on the wallaby; and Mrs Thomas said that I ought to follow Jack’s example. And just then I felt a touch of that loneliness that some men feel when an old drinking mate turns teetotaller.
Jack started coughing again, like an old cow with the pleuro.
“That cough will kill you, Jack,” said Thomas. “Let’s put a drop of brandy in your coffee, that won’t start you, anyhow; it’s real ‘Three Star.’” And he reached a bottle from the side-table.