Fitzgerald held out his mess-tin again and received another tot of rum. Then he lit a cigarette.
"There's nothing like a drop of rum," he remarked. "It's 'health to the navel and marrow to the bones,' as the Scripture has it."
The hut laughed.
"What about a song, Fitz?" Flanagan asked.
"An old Irish one; a come-all-you."
"Nell Flaherty's Drake?" said Fitz in a tone of enquiry. The rum had put him in gay good humour.
"Spit it out," Flanagan yelled.
Fitzgerald commenced the song.
"My name it is Nell, the truth for to tell,
I live near Coothill, which I'll never deny,
I had a fine drake, the truth for to spake,
Which my grandmother left me before she did die.
"He was wholesome and sound and could weigh forty pound,
The wide world round I would roam for his sake,
But bad luck to the robber be he drunk or sober,
Who murdered Nell Flaherty's beautiful drake.