"All to once Terry begins smoothin' the gravel back with his toe. 'Casey,' he says, 'they will stretch! This is the day we walk on our feet and save two dollars carrermatter money. It ain't such a much, but—an' then,' he says, 'they's the chow money. I know a hash-fact'ry where we can get a plate of beans f'r a peseta y media, an' beans is fillin'. Y'r stummick don't hold but two quart and a half, anyhow, and you don't want to overload it. Come on,' he says, jumpin' up. 'Altogether there's about seventy-seven beers got by the Old Man. Come on! We must have lost a lot of time.'
"'As you were,' I says. 'If you take me f'r a low booze-fighter like yourself,' I says, 'you're much mistaken; and besides,' I says, 'did ye ever hear the Old Man talk like he did this mornin'?'
"'Onct,' says Terry.
"'An' you know what you got,' I says. 'It's up to you and me to roost high and pull up our feet, f'r if old Ma Trouble gets her claws into us this happy day, th' Old Man is plannin' to draw cards, too, and they're a bad pair to buck. Sabe?'
"Terry seen I was right, an' that's the way we come to land down there on th' waterfront. Don't ast me where it was. We walked through about six gates in th' Walled City and come out on the river, an' took a canoe and landed somewhere way down on the other side. That's all I know. There was the place waitin' for us. Café of the 400 Flags, it says in Spanish over the door, and underneath, in English, Sailor's Friendly.
"And it was a nice friendly sort of place. We was the only ones there, and after we'd got sat down in a corner by a window, we figured we'd fooled old Ma Trouble f'r once. There warn't anybody within a mile to lead us astray, an' we just aimed to set there an' look at th' boats on th' river till we'd had enough, and then go back to Barracks and surprise the Old Man, and make him ashamed of himself. But it warn't to be.
"We hadn't been settin' there more'n half an hour, when that A.O.H. sailorman Schleimacher from Cavite comes in the door, and th' sorrerful lad was right behind him. It was all off then, on'y we didn't know it.
"'Ahoy, amigos,' says Schleimacher. 'Well, well, well, if it ain't the two paytriots! Always sloppin' round in beer, ain't you? Don't go dilutin' your insides with that stuff. Here, you,' he yells to the Malay pirate behind the bar, 'fetch along th' thought-remover f'r th' Señors.'
"'W'isky?' asts th' pirate.
"'If that ain't like a Marine!' says Terry. 'But then you ain't got a canteen no more, either.'