“Oh, yes, that’s the fun of it. That’s what made him so excited. He was in the parlour all the time I was playing. But we might as well have a drink!
“We did. I wanted it.”
Bill turned in by-and-by, and looked like a sleeping innocent in the moonlight. I sat up late, and smoked, and thought hard, and watched Bill, and turned in, and thought till near daylight, and then went to sleep, and had a nightmare about it. I dreamed I chased Stiffner forty miles to buy his pub, and that Bill turned out to be his nephew.
Bill divvied up all right, and gave me half a crown over, but I didn’t travel with him long after that. He was a decent young fellow as far as chaps go, and a good mate as far as mates go; but he was too far ahead for a peaceful, easy-going chap like me. It would have worn me out in a year to keep up to him.
P.S.—The name of this should have been: ‘Bill and Stiffner (thirdly, Jim)’
WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN
Jack Drew sat on the edge of the shaft, with his foot in the loop and one hand on the rope, ready to descend. His elder brother, Tom, stood at one end of the windlass and the third mate at the other. Jack paused before swinging off, looked up at his brother, and impulsively held out his hand:
“You ain’t going to let the sun go down, are you, Tom?”
But Tom kept both hands on the windlass-handle and said nothing.
“Lower away!”