‘Still very ill,’ answered Conseltine.
‘He’s been upset by that old fool Peebles, who’s been hammering at him all day long to recall that brat of a by-love of his.’
‘Faith!’ returned Blake, ‘and he might do worse, by a great deal. ’Tis a fine lad, Desmond, as clever and handsome as that cub of yours is stupid and ugly. Don’t stand there, ye imp of perdition, glowering at me like a ghost. Sit down and drink like a Christian.’
Richard obeyed a scarcely perceptible motion of his father’s eyebrows, sat at the battered table, and poured out for himself a glass of whisky, to which he put his lips with an awkward affectation of goodfellowship.
‘Have ye got that two hundred pounds?’ asked Blake.
‘I have,’ said Conseltine; ‘I’ve brought it with me.’
He unbuttoned his coat, and took a bundle of bank papers from the inner breast-pocket. Blake took it with shaking hands, and rammed it in a crumpled mass into his breeches pocket without counting.
‘You’re as good as your word, Dick Conseltine, for once in your life,’ said he. ‘Have another drink.’
Conseltine profited by Blake raising his glass to his lips to fling the contents of the tumbler which Biddy had filled for him on to the earthen floor of the hut, and filled it again, principally with water.
‘Why,’ said Blake, ‘ye’re gettin’ friendly and neighbourly in your old age. Ye’ll be a dacent man before ye die, if ye live long enough.’