“Not w’en I know’d ’im, but he was a fuss-rate seaman an’ a good friend, though he was fond of his glass, like yourself, Sam.”
It chanced that at this point Sergeant Hardy, in moving about the place, taking profound interest in all that he saw, came within earshot of the two friends, to whom he at once went up and introduced himself as a friend of Jack Molloy.
“Indeed,” said he, “Molloy and I fought pretty near to each other in that last affair under General McNeill, so I can give you the latest news of him.”
“Can you, old man? Come, sit down here, an’ let’s have it then,” said Thorley. “Jack was an old messmate o’ mine. What’ll you take to drink, mate?”
“Nothing, thankee. I’m allowanced by the doctor even in the matter o’ tea and coffee,” said the sergeant. “As to bein’ an’ old man—well, I ain’t much older than yourself, I daresay, though wounds and sickness and physic are apt to age a man in looks.”
Sitting down beside the sailors, Hardy told of the great fight at McNeill’s zereba, and how Molloy and others of his friends had gone to rescue a comrade and been cut off. He relieved Fred’s mind, however, by taking the most hopeful view of the matter, as he had previously relieved the feelings of Marion. And then the three fell to chatting on things in general and the war in particular.
“Now don’t this feel homelike?” said Sam, looking round the room with great satisfaction. “If it wasn’t for the heat I’d a’most think we was in a temperance coffee-house in old England.”
“Or owld Ireland,” chimed in a sailor at the neighbouring table.
“To say naething o’ auld Scotland,” added a rugged man in red hair, who sat beside him.
“Well, messmate,” assented Fred, “it do feel homelike, an’ no mistake. Why, what ever is that?”