I did not have to tell McWarrish about the fight. He had seen it with the ladies from the veranda of the plaza hotel. And at dinner at the hotel, where in what was left of my uniform I sat in state, it developed that McWarrish and myself were of the one mind concerning Bobbie Burns. He poured six or eight or maybe a dozen libations to the memory o' rantin' Robbie, and says McWarrish then: "Mon, mon," he says, "but 'tis inspirin' tae meet wi' sich rare friendliness," and leads me down to where he had his motor-boat ready to take me out to the ship.
"Would ye no like tae ha' been there," says McWarrish, "the rainy nicht Robbie cam' ridin' on his horse frae the tavern wi' fower or five, or eight or ten it micht be, guid measures o' usquebaugh under his shirt tae keep him wet inside, wi' his cloak doon ower his shouthers tae keep him dry ootside, the whiles he composed the grandest song ever writ by the hond o' mon? Listen!" And he rolls out:
"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots wham Bruce has aften led—"
He was a large-boned man, McWarrish, with a voice that left no idle spaces in the air about him, and I am myself no dwarf, nor weak of lung; and singing in and out among the fleet we went, while marine guards looked over top-rails and bluejackets rolled out of their blankets to give us a cheerful word in passing and sailors on anchor watch warned us in a friendly way not to run 'em down and sink 'em—from one battleship after another—when in the silvery night they would loom surprisingly up before McWarrish, who was steering.
"Wull I gae aboard wi' ye, brither," he says to me when by and by we made my ship, "tae explain the reason o' your delay?"
"Thank you, friend," I said, "but there'll be trouble enough as it is." And I climbed up the side the while he shoved off for the beach again.
"What," says Mr. Trench, who had the deck, "shall I set down in the log for your overstaying your liberty after you were so strictly warned?"
"Yes," says Regulations, bobbing up behind him, "what's the alibi this time?"
And I gives them the log of the day from first to last, even as I've told it here, omitting, of course, the personal allusions, and all gravely and respectfully, as befitted an enlisted man to his officers.
"M—m—," says Regulations, and considered the case. "You say you bought tickets to the bull-fight, eh? And didn't use them? M—m—m—then you must have the tickets yet. Where are they?"