“It means that I was a stowaway, and my friend here a castaway—I mean that I was a castaway, and Jack was a stowaway. Willie, do you remember Barton?”
“Old Barney? Of course I do. How did he come to let you out of his sight?”
Dennis did not speak. I saw that he could not, so I took upon me to explain.
“They were out in the hooker, off the Irish coast, and she went to pieces in a gale. Old Barney was lost, and we picked Dennis up.”
He nodded to me, and with his hand through Dennis O’Moore’s arm, said kindly, “We’ll go to my quarters, and talk it over. Where are you putting up?”
“We’re only just paid off,” said I.
“Then you’ll rough it with me, of course, both of you.”
I thanked him, and Dennis said, “Willie, the one thing I’ve been wanting to ask you is, if you know where that cousin of my father’s lives, who is in business out here. Do you know him?”
“Certainly. I’m going there to-night, for a dance, and you shall come with me, I can rig you out.”
They went ahead, arm-in-arm, and I followed at just sufficient distance behind to catch the backward looks of amazement which the young officer’s passing friends were too polite to indulge when exactly on a level with him. He capped first one and then another with an air of apparent unconsciousness, but the contrast between his smart appearance and spotless white uniform, and the patched remains of Dennis’s homespun suit (to say nothing of the big bundle in which he carried his “duds”), justified a good deal of staring, of which I experienced a humble share myself.