“Show me the spalpeens! Show me ’em!” roared he, almost beside himself. “Let me at ’em, Duck, ye blackguard; let me at ’em!”
And so saying he seized Mr Downie, who happened to be standing near him, and nearly shook the bones out of that unoffending hero’s body.
“Do ye hear?” roared Paddy, quite out of his senses.
“I hear,” said Downie, coolly, proceeding to take off his coat and tuck up his shirt-sleeves as if he were going to wash his hands.
“What’s the gossoon about at all?” cried my master, taken aback by this unexpected reply to his question.
“On’y going to smash you!” calmly replied the imperturbable Duck, beginning to spar—“so come on, my lad!”
That Patrick would have joyfully accepted the invitation I have no doubt, had not an accident at that moment befallen him.
A trolly coming up behind, took him off his feet. To recover himself, he took a spring forward, and landed full on the top of the junior ensign of the regiment, a mild youth with a very little voice, and for the next minute the two were rolling, one on the top of the other, over and over, along the wet deck, amid the laughter of everybody.
By the time Paddy had picked himself up, and helped the poor young ensign to his feet, his ardour was sufficiently damped. He apologised with as good grace as he could to his late victim, and made very humble excuses to the sergeant in charge, who, fortunately for him, had witnessed that the affair was an accident.
Duck Downie, however, with his coat off and his sleeves tucked up, still awaited his man as if nothing had happened, and seemed surprised that Paddy was not as eager as before for the fray. The latter, however, quite sobered by this time, merely cried out in the hearing of everybody,—