The new-comer regarded him tenderly for a moment without a word, and then, kicking open the door with an unmistakable wooden leg, stumped into the bar, and grasping his outstretched hand shook it fervently.
“I met Cap’n Peters in Melbourne,” said the stranger, as his friend pushed him into his own chair, and questioned him breathlessly. “He told me where you was.”
“The sight o’ you, Hennery Wiggett, is better to me than diamonds,” said Mr. Ketchmaid, ecstatically. “How did you get here?”
“A friend of his, Cap’n Jones, of the barque Venus, gave me a passage to London,” said Mr. Wiggett, “and I’ve tramped down from there without a penny in my pocket.”
“And Sol Ketchmaid’s glad to see you, sir,” said Mr. Smith, who, with the rest of the company, had been looking on in a state of great admiration. “He’s never tired of telling us ‘ow you saved him from the shark and ’ad your leg bit off in so doing.”
“I’d ’ave my other bit off for ’im, too,” said Mr. Wiggett, as the landlord patted him affectionately on the shoulder and thrust a glass of spirits into his hands. “Cheerful, I would. The kindest-’earted and the bravest man that ever breathed, is old Sol Ketchmaid.”
He took the landlord’s hand again, and, squeezing it affectionately, looked round the comfortable bar with much approval. They began to converse in the low tones of confidence, and names which had figured in many of the landlord’s stories fell continuously on the listeners’ ears.
“You never ’eard anything more o’ pore Sam Jones, I s’pose?” said Mr. Ketchmaid.
Mr. Wiggett put down his glass.
“I ran up agin a man in Rio Janeiro two years ago,” he said, mournfully. “Pore old Sam died in ’is arms with your name upon ’is honest black lips.”