"'Stead of a kick it had a kind of a pull to it, that drink did, like a b'loon. 'Two more of them,' says Sly, settin' down his glass, 'an' th' Cavite ferry can go when it very well pleases. _I_ can walk.'
"'If so be I _'ad_ a friend,' says th' mayreener, sort of proud at th' way we lapped them up, 'they's nothin' I'd love better'n to set all dye long mykin' tamarin' cocktails for 'im.' I reckon that was no lie. 'Mytes,' says he, 'w'en I think I'll never 'ave no real friend to myke th'm for--'
"'Brace up, Bo,' says Terry, like a father. Th' tamarin's had took holt that quick. 'Brace up, old sport. We're all friends o' your'n here. Ain't that so, boys?'
"'_Is_ it, mytes?' says th' mayreener. '_Is_ it? Well, well, I never thought to 'ave _three_ friends all to onct! W'en I think of all the 'undreds of shipmytes--I'll be mykin' up another, mytes.'
"So Barnacles, he got started makin' th'm, an' we got started drinkin' th'm. So did he. I never seen a drink ack like them. Didn't seem to have no real effeck, but things just moved away back where they belonged an' let you alone. And sympathetic! Say, if we could on'y manage to throw a few of them into Local 23, we'd get th' canteen back. They sure are a funny drink. 'Bout th' sixth, we couldn't do enough f'r that stranded mayreener. I'd forgot all about his seemin' fishy, and me an' Terry an' Sly hung round him like a bunch of old-maid aunts, givin' him drinks ev'ry time he remembered anything. He sure had a great mem'ry. 'Twarn't till th' middle of the afternoon it begun to show signs of givin' out. An' then he thinks he wants to have a look at Maniller--sos't he could remember _that_, I reckon.
"His legs wouldn't quite hold him. 'Mytes,' he says, 'me knees ayn't what they ware. W'en I remember them trips to Kerguelen's Land, down round San Fernando Fo--in them dyes no smarter 'and rove a dead-eye or 'auled a keel. But now--'
"'Give him an arm, Casey,' says Terry. 'Can't you see he ain't as young as us? Brace up, old sport, we'll look out f'r _you_.'
"So th' three of us steers th' sorrerful sailorman out onto th' _muelle_, an' there warn't a livin' soul on th' whole river front but just the accidental caraboo! _He_ was standin' hitched to a cart, right where old Ma had left him.