"I must, you know!"
"With a busted blood-vessel in your innards and a—a—a——"
"Oh, come now, Handy, this thing has gone far enough. I appreciate all you did for me in an emergency, but there's no necessity for keeping up the deception any longer. I tell you I have an important engagement——"
"Hold! Avast heaving and take a hitch," interrupted the veteran. "Give me no more of that important engagement business in mine. I have some say in this matter, I have."
"You have—and how, pray?"
"Well, I'll give it you, and straight, too."
"Go on, then."
"Well, you were to have taken a benefit last night, weren't you?"
"I'm listening."
"An' you didn't, did you?"