"Boys," said the Blackguard, "who wouldn't be a soldier at fifty cents a day and die for a living!"
"Shut yer jaw! Can't you drink, Blackguard, without making speeches? Why, the smell of a cork sets you off. You'd talk the legs off a brass monkey!"
"What I say is," shouted Mutiny Saunders, in hot argument with his chum, Tribulation Jones,—"what I sez is, when a man's got an 'orse and looks after that 'orse, and grooms that 'orse, and gits to like 'is 'orse, and some 'alf-breed hofficer wants to take that 'orse away from 'im, and 'e bucks stiff-legged,—what I sez is, 'air on 'im!"
"Camp on 'is trail!" suggested Tribulation,—"make 'is life a burden to 'im. Oh, my Gawd, tear a bone out of 'im! What do you say, Blackguard?"
"Oh, keep it till the break of day.
"'Women and wine and war!'
Eh, Mother Darkness? Come and be Mrs. Blackguard. Boys, celebrate our nuptials, dance at our wedding, for Mother Darkness is to be Queen of the May—and share my Government straight, and pay my debts, and take in washing, and be my wife."
He kissed her ugly black face, while she rocked to and fro muttering "Lordy! Lordy!"
"I'll take a scarecrow in—I'll have a bally scarecrow for my wife!" shouted Billy Boy out of a corner. "Send round the poison, Blackguard."
"Yes, and to the blazes with poverty. Mother Darkness, my last dollar for the drinks—for now I'm clean-busted."