Blue Lights | Page 8

but if you do, I'll knock in your daylights, an' polish up your figur'-head so as your own mother would mistake you fur a battered saucepan!"
The seaman did not move from his semi-recumbent position as he uttered this alarming threat, but he accompanied it with a portentous frown and an owlish wink of both eyes.
"What! have you joined the Blue Lights?" asked Sloper, with a smile, referring to the name by which the religious and temperance men of the army were known.
"No, I ha'n't. Better for me, p'r'aps, if I had. Here, waiter, fetch me another gin-an'-warer. An' more o' the gin than the warer, mind. Heave ahead or I'll sink you!"
Having been supplied with a fresh dose of gin and water, the seaman appeared to go to sleep, and Miles, for want of anything better to do, accepted Sloper's invitation to play a game of dominoes.
"Are the beds here pretty good?" he asked, as they were about to begin.
"Yes, first-rate--for the money," answered Sloper.
"That's a lie!" growled the big sailor. "They're bad at any price-- stuffed wi' cocoa-nuts and marline-spikes."
Mr Sloper received this observation with the smiling urbanity of a man who eschews war at all costs.
"You don't drink," he said after a time, referring to Miles's pot of beer, which he had not yet touched.
Miles made no reply, but by way of answer took up the pot and put it to his lips.
He had not drunk much of it when the big seaman rose hurriedly and staggered between the two tables. In doing so, he accidentally knocked the pot out of the youth's hand, and sent the contents into Mr Sloper's face and down into his bosom, to the immense amusement of the company.
That man of peace accepted the baptism meekly, but Miles sprang up in sudden anger.
The seaman turned to him, however, with a benignantly apologetic smile.
"Hallo! messmate. I ax your parding. They don't leave room even for a scarecrow to go about in this here cabin. I'll stand you another glass. Give us your flipper!"
There was no resisting this, it was said so heartily. Miles grasped the huge hand that was extended and shook it warmly.
"All right," he said, laughing. "I don't mind the beer, and there's plenty more where that came from, but I fear you have done some damage to my fr--"
"Your friend. Out with it, sir. Never be ashamed to acknowledge your friends," exclaimed the shabby man, as he wiped his face. "Hold on a bit," he added, rising; "I'll have to change my shirt. Won't keep you waitin' long."
"Another pot o' beer for this 'ere gen'lem'n," said the sailor to the barman as Sloper left the room.
Paying for the drink, he returned and put the pot on the table. Then, turning to Miles, he said in a low voice and with an intelligent look--
"Come outside for a bit, messmate. I wants to speak to 'ee."
Miles rose and followed the man in much surprise.
"You'll excuse me, sir," he said, when a few yards away from the door; "but I see that you're green, an' don't know what a rascally place you've got into. I've been fleeced there myself, and yet I'm fool enough to go back! Most o' the parties there--except the sailors an' sodgers--are thieves an' blackguards. They've drugged your beer, I know; that's why I capsized it for you, and the feller that has got hold o' you is a well-known decoy-duck. I don't know how much of the ready you may have about you, but this I does know, whether it be much or little, you wouldn't have a rap of it in the mornin' if you stayed the night in this here house."
"Are you sure of this, friend?" asked Miles, eyeing his companion doubtfully.
"Ay, as sure as I am that my name's Jack Molloy."
"But you've been shamming drunk all this time. How am I to know that you are not shamming friendship now?"
"No, young man," returned the seaman with blinking solemnity. "I'm not shammin' drunk. I on'y wish I was, for I'm three sheets in the wind at this minute, an' I've a splittin' headache due i' the mornin'. The way as you've got to find out whether I'm fair an' above-board is to look me straight in the face an' don't wink. If that don't settle the question, p'r'aps it'll convince you w'en I tells you that I don't care a rap whether you go back to that there grog-shop or not. Only I'll clear my conscience--leastways, wot's left of it--by tellin' ye that if you do-- you--you'll wish as how you hadn't--supposin' they leave you the power to wish anything at all."
"Well, I believe you are a true man, Mister Molloy--"
"Don't Mister me, mate," interrupted the seaman.
"My name's Jack Molloy, at your service, an' that name don't