He took her in his arms and kissed her. Then he kissed his father—
“Good-bye, dad—you’ll be climbing fences afore I’m back, and—” in a friendly whisper, “you kip away from that old Volunteer. See wot gitting shut of the drink has maade you—you’re twice the man, fur all your leg. You kip on wud it, faather. You’ve got a start like—it ought to be easy now.”
“Kip on wud wot, my lad?—wud my leg, or the drink, or doing wudout the drink? You doan’t spik clear and expressly—reckon you’re gitting just a brutal soldier.”
“Maybe I am, Faather.”
“And you’ll never come raound me to kip teetotal when I think of them Russians—all got shut of drink the fust month of the war, and then went and bust up and ruined us. It’s bin proved as the war ull go on a dunnamany years on account of them valiant teetotallers. If we British all turn teetotal too, reckon as the war ull last fur ever.”
“Reckon you’ve got the brains!” said Tom, but not in quite the same tone as he used to say it.
He said good-bye to Harry and Zacky, and to Nell—with a pat on her shoulder and a “Doan’t you fret, my dear—he’ll come back.”
Mrs. Beatup went down with him to the end of the drive. She looked on this as her privilege, and also had some hazy idea about giving him good advice. All she could think of on the present occasion was to “Kip sober and finish the war.”
“Wish that being my faather’s son maade it as easy to do one as it does to do t’other. Now doan’t you start crying, fur I tell you I’ll be back before you scarce know I’m a-gone.”
“It’s queer, Tom ... now, thur’s summat I want to know. Tell me—is a wife better than a mother?”