"What a pity it is you sailors can't keep off the drink," said the chaplain, closing the book and laying it down. "Why don't you sign the pledge? An intelligent young fellow like you—you ought not to be here."
Gardiner stared; then he laughed. "I think you've got hold of the wrong pig this time, sir. I'm not a drunk and dis."
"You're in for beating your wife, aren't you? I hope you're not going to tell me you did that when you were sober."
"'Have you left off beating your wife?'" murmured Gardiner with irrepressible levity. "Neither drunk nor sober, sir. Couldn't, not possessing one. That's my next-door neighbor—West, B15. I'm B14—Gardiner."
Mr. Roche was not at all disconcerted. "Gardiner?" he repeated, consulting his notebook. "Oh ah; I must have mistaken the number. Gardiner. Yes, I remember about you." He looked him over with his cool eye. There was a shade of difference in his manner. B14 did not stand on a par with B15. Mr. Roche was very decidedly not a democrat. "And how much longer have you to serve?"
"Four months."
Roche's eyes continued to dwell on him with an expression that the prisoner could not read; it was speculative and appraising, and seemed to refer back to private thoughts which had nothing to do with the present. "You've never been a Territorial?" he asked unexpectedly.
"No," said Gardiner, a little surprised.
"Ah! Well, I'll see you again some other day, Gardiner. At present I must go and pay my call next door."
"Thank you, sir," said Gardiner dutifully. He bethought himself to add, as Roche got up: "It's not true, sir, is it, that there's a war scare on?"