“Ay, still with him, and well,” replied Haco, with a look that did not convey the idea of satisfaction.
“Not goin’ to get married?” inquired Billy with caution.
Haco snorted, then he grunted, and then he said—
“Yes, she was goin’ to get married, and he wished she wasn’t, that was all.”
“Who to?” inquired the other.
“Why, to that Irish scoundrel Dan Horsey, to be sure,” said Haco with a huge sigh of resignation, which, coming from any other man, would have been regarded as a groan. “The fact is, lad, that poor Susan’s heart is set upon that fellow, an’ so it’s no use resistin’ them no longer. Besides, the blackguard is well spoken of by his master, who’s a trump. Moreover, I made a kind o’ half promise long ago that I’d not oppose them, to that scapegrace young Lieutenant Bingley, who’s on his way home from China just now. An’ so it’s a-goin’ to be; an’ they’ve set their hearts on havin’ the weddin’ same week as the weddin’ o’ Master Kenneth and Lizzie Gordon; so the fact is they may all marry each other, through other, down the middle and up again, for all I care, ’cause I’m a-goin’ on a whalin’ voyage to Novy Zembly or Kumskatchkie—anywheres to git peace o’ mind—there!”
Saying this Haco dashed the ashes out of his big German pipe into his left palm, and scattered them to the winds.
“Now, lad,” he said, in conclusion, “we’ll go turn in, and you’ll sleep with me to-night, for ye couldn’t get a bed in the Home for love or money, seein’ that it’s choke full already. Come along.”