“Howdy, Cap’n Mike! It’s a low-down Irish trick to laugh at a man that’s all wore out and tore up the way I am.”
Captain Michael O’Shea strove to check his unseemly mirth and thumped his old comrade affectionately as he explained:
“So this is the happy, simple life that ye cracked on about for years. You look it, Johnny. Was it an explosion that wrecked you or have ye been cleaning boilers? And is every day like this on the dear old homestead?”
“Not by a darn sight. I had to take a turn of extra duty. I’m the happiest man in the world, Cap’n Mike. And I’m tickled to death to clap eyes on you. Wait till I wash up and change my clothes.”
“Sure I’ll wait, Johnny. ’Tis a visit I have come to pay. You are sensitive about the terrible condition I find ye in, so I will say no more. But if I was surveyin’ you for Lloyds, I would mark you down as a total loss. And how are the pigs and chickens?”
The portly farmer brightened instantly and wheeled in the door to exclaim:
“You just ought to see ’em! Now how did I get along at sea all those years without ’em? Can you tell me that?”
“’Twas the lack of them that made ye so thin and melancholy,” said O’Shea with a grin. “Clean yourself up and fill the old pipe with the wicked brand of cut plug that ye misname tobacco, and we will sit down and talk it over.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n Mike. And there’s some bottles of beer in the ice-box in the wood-shed. It’s just abaft the galley. Help yourself.”
The shipmaster enjoyed exploring the cottage while his host repaired damages and presently reappeared in a white-duck uniform, which he had worn as chief engineer of the English steamer Tarlington.