The Captain coughed suddenly, as an unsavoury odour assailed his nostrils.
'What is it, Alf? Been buying up old fish?'
'Just eggs,' came the modest answer. 'But they weren't laid yesterday. Tell you, Captain, if you look close, you can pretty near see the feathers shooting out of the shell.'
'You're sort of hard on old Peter, strikes me,' began the other, but McAuliffe choked him off at once,--
'Nothing's bad enough for the cowardly rascal. Shouldn't be surprised if we cut the tent ropes before we're through with him.' He laid the redolent hamper on the ground, that he might rub his hands in delight at the thought.
This public demonstration called forth the astonishment of a passing Chinaman, who stood and gazed blankly at the big man's evolutions.
'Here's more of your pards coming around,' said Captain Robinson. 'They'll be running you into a cool place presently, Alf, if they see you cutting these sort of didoes.'
'Dern his gall!' exclaimed McAuliffe, catching up the hamper and thrusting it against the Celestial's face. 'You git home, Johnny, and wash your clothes.'
With unusual alacrity this command was obeyed.
'Now, Captain, come on back to the hotel and have a feed with me.'
'Can't do it, Alf. Got a whole crowd of things to fix up. Come round later, if you like.'
'Well, be up half past nine. Sharp on time, you know; I'll be there. Room No. 14. You'll find your way there by the smell of whisky. Least that's what Dave said. Wonderful nose Davey has for that sort nothing, anyway.'
'Right. If you don't turn up, I'll reckon the police have got hold of you for making a disturbance, eh?'
McAuliffe picked up his basket with a chuckle. 'I'm young enough to play the fool, but I'm too old to get caught,' he said. Then he made speedily towards the saloon, where he knew his elderly companions might still be found. A few minutes later he was vigorously quarrelling with the bar-tender, who wanted to eject him and his unhealthy burden.
It was a strange spectacle, one which probably might not be seen in any other country, thus to find several men, all of them distinctly past the prime of life, indulging in capricious acts of rowdyism which could only befit the average schoolboy. The officials of the H.B.C. chained down as they are for the greater part of life to the monotonous loneliness of some northern station, form a class apart from all others. As such a class they are especially distinguished by a strong craving after liquor--a natural product of a continued solitary existence--and a juvenile impetuosity of manner, which can only exhibit itself during their few days of leave, when they can return to civilisation to feel themselves again surrounded by fellow creatures. The reaction is a natural one. The anchorite who returns to the world generally plunges deeply into the whirling vortex of pleasure, to make up as far as possible for all he has lost. A conclusion points at once to the axiom, that folly is no respecter either of age or person.