"No thankee. If I can't git it strong, let's at least have it hot. But, I say, what's come o' the lobsters? Don't seem to be many about. I thought this here Institoot was got up a-purpose for _them_. "So it was, lad, includin' us; but you don't suppose that because _you_ are out on the spree, everybody else is. They're on dooty just now. Wait a bit an' you'll see plenty of 'em afore long." "Are all that come here Blue Lights?" asked Sam, with a somewhat doleful visage. "By no manner o' means," returned his friend, with a laugh; "tho' for the matter o' that they wouldn't be worse men if they was, but many of 'em are no better than they should be, an' d'ee know, Sam, there are some of 'em actually as great blackguards a'most as yourself!" "There's some comfort in that anyhow," returned Sam, with a pleasant smile, "for I hates to be pecooliar. By the way, Fred, p'r'aps they may be able to give you some noos here, if you ax 'em, about your friend Jack Molloy. _He_ was a Blue Light, wasn't he?" "Not w'en I know'd 'im, but he was a fuss-rate seaman an' a good friend, though he _was_ fond of his glass, like yourself, Sam." It chanced that at this point Sergeant Hardy, in moving about the place, taking profound interest in all that he saw, came within earshot of the two friends, to whom he at once went up and introduced himself as a friend of Jack Molloy. "Indeed," said he, "Molloy and I fought pretty near to each other in that last affair under General McNeill, so I can give you the latest news of him." "Can you, old man? Come, sit down here, an' let's have it then," said Thorley. "Jack was an old messmate o' mine. What'll you take to drink, mate?" "Nothing, thankee. I'm allowanced by the doctor even in the matter o' tea and coffee," said the sergeant. "As to bein' an' old man--well, I ain't much older than yourself, I daresay, though wounds and sickness and physic are apt to age a man in looks." Sitting down beside the sailors, Hardy told of the great fight at McNeill's zereba, and how Molloy and others of his friends had gone to rescue a comrade and been cut off. He relieved Fred's mind, however, by taking the most hopeful view of the matter, as he had previously relieved the feelings of Marion. And then the three fell to chatting on things in general and the war in particular. "Now don't this feel homelike?" said Sam, looking round the room with great satisfaction. "If it wasn't for the heat I'd a'most think we was in a temperance coffee-house in old England." "Or owld Ireland," chimed in a sailor at the neighbouring table. "To say naething o' auld Scotland," added a rugged man in red hair, who sat beside him. "Well, messmate," assented Fred, "it _do_ feel homelike, an' no mistake. Why, what ever is _that_?"