“What-ho, me bhoy,” he roared, “and how’s me natty Matty—the natest foightin’ man in E Troop, which is sayin’ in all the Dhraghoons, which is sayin’ in all the Arrmy! How’s Matty?”
“Extant,” replied Dam. “How’s Shocky, the biggest liar in the same?”
As he extended his hand it was noticeable that it was much smaller than the hand of the smaller man to whom it was offered. “Ye’ll have to plug and desthroy the schamin’ divvle that strook poor Patsy Flannigan, Matty,” said the Irishman. “Ye must bate the sowl out of the baste before we go to furrin’ parts. Loife is uncertain an’ ye moight never come back to do ut, which the Holy Saints forbid—an’ the Hussars troiumphin’ upon our prosprit coorpses. For the hanner an’ glory av all Dhraghoons, of the Ould Seconds, and of me pore bed-ridden frind, Patsy Flannigan, ye must go an’ plug the wicked scutt, Matty darlint.”
“It was Flannigan’s fault,” replied Dam, daubing pipe-clay on the huge cuff of a gauntlet which he had drawn on to a weird-looking wooden hand, sacred to the purposes of glove-drying. “He got beastly drunk and insulted a better man than himself by insulting his Corps—or trying to. He called a silly lie after a total stranger and got what he deserved. He shouldn’t seek sorrow if he doesn’t want to find it, and he shouldn’t drink liquor he can’t carry.”
“And the Young Jock beat Patsy when drunk, did he?” murmured O’Shaughnessy, in tones of awed wonder. “I riverince the man, for there’s few can beat him sober. Knocked Patsy into hospital an’ him foightin’ dhrunk! Faith, he must be another Oirish gintleman himself, indade.”
“He’s a Scotchman and was middle-weight champion of India last year,” rejoined Dam, and moistened his block of pipe-clay again in the most obvious, if least genteel, way.
“Annyhow he’s a mere Hussar and must be rimonsthrated wid for darin’ to assault and batther a Dhraghoon—an’ him dhrunk, poor bhoy. Say the wurrud, Matty. We’ll lay for the spalpeen, the whole of E Troop, at the _Ring o’ Bells_, an’ whin he shwaggers in like he was a Dhraghoon an’ a sodger, ye’ll up an’ say _‘Threes about’_ an’ act accordin’ subsequint, an’ learn the baste not to desthroy an’ insult his betthers of the Ould Second. Thread on the tail of his coat, Matty….”