“Feeney—you old were-wolf—you’ve been scratching old Mother Earth in the raw places—almost as long as I have. What are you out for this time?”
Feeney hesitated, and Trollope dragged out the answer: “All kinds of berths for Feeney. The Thames will put out a dispatch-boat which he can command if he likes. The Pan-Anglo wants him for the Russian end. Also he’s got an offer to follow the Japanese. Feeney told me more about the Yalu country, and that new cartridge-belt of creation, while we were walking over here to-night—red-beard bandits, Russian grand dukes, Japanese spies, with queues, who have been mapping Manchuria for ten years—than any white man has a right to know.”
The fact was that old Feeney had about closed to go out for the Witness, which Jerry had left open.
“There’s no need of asking about Talliaferro,” Cardinegh said impatiently.
“No, Talliaferro is Peter Pellen’s ‘Excalibur,’ as usual; and will set out on schedule for the Yalu or the Gugger—wherever the fronts meet.”
“And the Witness?” Jerry said, clearing his throat. His thoughts were like birds starting up in the dusk, clots of night without name and form.
Finacune arose and filled the breech. “The Witness awaits the word of the greatest of us all—our dean, Jerry Cardinegh. I propose now a drink to him standing—to the greatest of our kind!”
Personal vanity had never fallen into the senility of the Irishman, but he arose with the others, and his face caught up an old wild look familiar to everyone in the room, as he raised his hand to speak:
“Let us drink to the greatest of us all, as you say,—not to the decayed correspondent which the Witness does not wait for.” His eyes flashed with a sudden memory of the windy night in Bhurpal. “Let us drink to the greatest of us all—‘the man whom the gods formed for a war-correspondent—or a spy, as you like—whom they tempered in hell’s fire and holy water’—drink to Cosmo Routledge, already afield!”
The old man did not note the suppressed disorder, nor the dawn of joy on the face of his daughter.