‘Oi mane what oi say, sir,’ said Mac. ‘It was a dirty mane trick. Mrs Fuller asked me to get the bird for her, and oi got it; and you come in with a pole like a mast, and you fish it out under me very oyes!’
‘Under your very stick, you mean, Mac,’ said Goodhew, laughing.
‘No matter what oi mane!’ exclaimed the infuriated Irishman. ‘Oi mane, that when one gintleman recaives a commission from a lady, and another gintleman executes it by a mane trick, the other gintleman’s no gintleman at all at all—but a cad, Mister Goodhew, a cad!’
‘I say, Mac, draw it mild,’ said Goodhew, in his turn irritated; ‘we’re not all bogtrotters here!’
‘Is it bogtrotter ye’re callin’ me!’ exclaimed Mac in a frenzy. ‘Bedad, oi’ll tache ye to call a MacWhirter a bogtrotter, ye spalpeen!’ And he sprang at Goodhew furiously.
Goodhew seized him by the waist, and in another minute would have certainly dropped Mac overboard, had we not all jumped up and interposed. Mac danced and kicked and struggled and used every vilifying expression he could. Goodhew also was endeavouring to wrest himself from our grasp; but we held on, and the opponents seeing that they could not get at each other, gradually desisted from trying.
‘Doctor!’ said Mac, after a breathing-space, ‘this is an affair for immadiate settlement.’
‘Pooh! my dear fellow,’ said the officer, ‘who can fight duels on the deck of a P. and O. steamer? Better wait till we get to Hong-kong; there’s plenty of room there.’
‘Hong-kong be it then,’ said Mac.—‘Mister Goodhew, oi’ll send ye me card in the morning.’
‘All right, Mac,’ replied Goodhew, who was recovering his good temper. ‘Send as many as you like. But don’t you think we’re a couple of fools, to be going on in this absurd way about a trifle?’