“There’s some of us can sing chorus to Corney,” observed one of the group. “I never saw such weather; and it seems to me that the worse the weather the more the fires, as if they got ’em up a purpose to kill us.”
“Bill Moxey!” cried another, “you’re always givin’ out some truism with a face like Solomon.”
“Well, Jack Williams,” retorted Moxey, “it’s more than I can say of you, for you never say anything worth listenin’ to, and you couldn’t look like Solomon if you was to try ever so much.—You’re too stoopid for that.”
“I say, lads,” cried Frank Willders, “what d’ye say to send along to the doctor for another bottle o’ cough mixture, same as the first?”
This proposal was received with a general laugh.
“He’ll not send us more o’ that tipple, you may depend,” said Williams.
“No, not av we wos dyin’,” said Corney, with a grin.
“What was it?” asked Williams.
“Didn’t you hear about it?” inquired Moxey. “Oh, to be sure not; you were in hospital after you got run over by the Baker Street engine. Tell him about it, Corney. It was you that asked the doctor, wasn’t it, for another bottle?”
Corney was about to speak, when a young fireman entered the room with his helmet hanging on his arm.