“No, nor that either, but—but—”
“Come now, none o’ your ‘buts.’ Come along; my mate Dick Martin is in here, an’ he’s the best o’ company.”
“Dick Martin in there!” repeated Lockley, on whom a sudden thought flashed. “Is he one o’ your hands?”
“In course he is. Left the Grimsby fleet a-purpose to j’ine me. Rather surly he is at times, no doubt, but a good fellow at bottom, and great company. You should hear him sing. Come.”
“Oh, I know him well enough by hearsay, but never met him yet.”
Whether it was the urgency of his friend, or a desire to meet with Dick Martin, that shook our skipper’s wavering resolution we cannot tell, but he went into the Blue Boar, and took a glass for good-fellowship. Being a man of strong passions and excitable nerves, this glass produced in him a desire for a second, and that for a third, until he forgot his intended visit to Eve, his promises to his wife, and his stern resolves not to submit any longer to the tyranny of drink. Still, the memory of Mrs Mooney’s conduct, and of the advice of his friend Fred Martin, had the effect of restraining him to some extent, so that he was only what his comrades would have called a little screwed when they had become rather drunk.
There are many stages of drunkenness. One of them is the confidential stage. When Dick Martin had reached this stage he turned with a superhumanly solemn countenance to Bryce and winked.
“If—if you th–think,” said Bryce thickly, “th–that winkin’ suits you, you’re mistaken.”
“Look ’ere,” said Dick, drawing a letter from his pocket with a maudlin leer, and holding it up before his comrade, who frowned at it, and then shook his head—as well he might, for, besides being very illegibly written, the letter was presented to him upside down.
After holding it before him in silence long enough to impress him with the importance of the document, Dick Martin explained that it was a letter which he had stolen from his sister’s house, because it contained “something to his advantage.”