"It is a very good toast, but we will postpone the rest till a more suitable occasion."
Ould Michael, however, was resolute.
"It would ill become a British soldier to permit this toast to go unhonored."
"Will you come after this one is drunk?" asked McFarquhar.
"I will that."
"Very well," said McFarquhar, "I drink to the very good health of Her Majesty's army," and, taking a short pull, he put the flask into his pocket.
Ould Michael gazed at him in amazed surprise and, after the full meaning of the joke had dawned upon him, burst out into laughter.
"Bedad, McFarquhar, it's the first joke ye iver made, but the less fraquent they are the better I loike them." So saying, he mounted his pony and, once more saluting me and then the flag, made off with his friend. Every now and then, however, I could see him sway in his saddle under the gusts of laughter at the excellence of McFarquhar's joke.
That was the last I saw of Ould Michael for more than six months, but often through that winter, as I worked my way to the Coast, I wondered what the monthly mails were doing for the old man and whether to him and to his friends of those secluded valleys any better relief from the monotony of life had come than that offered by Paddy Dougan's back room.