“Quite to ourselves, your honor,” answered Marmaduke, “save, oh, bless my heart! save for this idler asleep by the chimney. I meant to send him about his business ere you came!”
“Send him now, then,” said Farquhart, indifferently, “and, gentlemen, I can welcome you as to my own house.”
“Why waken the lad if he sleeps?” demanded young Lindley, who had seated himself astride of the arm of the chair that the innkeeper had deserted. The young man’s Irish blue eyes rested carelessly on the sleeping lad. “Why throw him out, Percy? Is he only a chance patron or a friend, Marmaduke?”
“A friend,” answered that worthy—“leastwise a friend of a year’s standing, and he’s slept like that since his last draught of wine.”
“Why not let him sleep, Percy?” It was still young Lindley who was interceding in the boy’s behalf. “Only two things can induce sleep like that—one’s good wine, the other’s a good conscience. Why interfere with either? Sure, we’re lacking in both ourselves.”
“Well, let him sleep for aught of me,” answered Farquhart, nonchalantly. “In truth, it’s so long since I’ve even seen sleep like that, that it rests me somewhat to be in the room with it.”
“If Marmaduke’ll vouch for the wine the boy’s had, I’ll vouch for the conscience,” asserted Lindley, again taking sides with the unknown. He laid a careless hand on the boy’s head. “He’s a likely lad, and it seems to me that neither wine alone nor conscience alone could induce sleep so deep. What’s his name?”
“That’s what I wish I could tell you, gentlemen,” Marmaduke answered, with some hesitation. “As I said, I’ve known him for a year or more, and he’s always promising me that next time, or some time, he’ll tell me who he is. But he’s only a lad, and I was thinking just before your honors came that perhaps I was doing wrong to let him drink away his fortunes here—that I ought to be telling his family, if I could but find out where and what it is.”
“But does he drink so heavily, then?” demanded Ashley, crossing over and looking down upon the lad. “A boy of his age and girth could not carry much, I should say.”
“No, not much, sir,” Marmaduke answered, hastily; “leastwise not here, but——”