“An' do you know how they did? That bhoy, so I was tould by letter from
Bombay, bully-damned 'em down to the dock, till they cudn't call their
sowls their own. From the time they left me oi till they was 'tween
decks, not wan av thim was more than dacintly dhrunk. An' by the Holy
Articles av War, whin they wint aboord they cheered him till they cudn't
spake, an' that, mark you, has not come about wid a draf' in the mlm'ry
av livin' man! You look to that little orf'cer bhoy. He has bowils. 'Tis
not ivry child that wud chuck the Rig'lations to Flanders an' stretch
Peg Barney on a wink from a brokin an' dilapidated ould carkiss like
mysilf. I'd be proud to serve--”
“Terence, you're a civilian,” said Dinah Shadd warningly.
“So I am--so I am. Is ut likely I wud forget ut? But he was a gran' bhoy
all the same, an' I'm only a mudtipper wid a hod on me shoulthers.
The whiskey's in the heel av your hand, Sorr. Wid your good lave we'll
dhrink to the Ould Rig'mint--three fingers--standin' up!” And we drank.
THE MUTINEY OF THE MAVERICKS
Sec. 7 (1)--Causing or Conspiring with other persons to cause a mutiny
or sedition in forces belonging to Her Majesty's Regular forces, Reserve
forces, Auxiliary forces, or Navy.
When three obscure gentlemen in San Francisco argued on insufficient
premises they condemned a fellow-creature to a most unpleasant death in
a far country which had nothing whatever to do with the United States.
They foregathered at the top of a tenement-house in Tehama Street, an
unsavoury quarter of the city, and, there calling for certain drinks,
they conspired because they were conspirators by trade, officially known
as the Third Three of the I. A. A.--an institution for the propagation
of pure light, not to be confounded with any others, though it is
affiliated to many. The Second Three live in Montreal, and work among
the poor there; the First Three have their home in New York, not far
from Castle Garden, and write regularly once a week to a small house
near one of the big hotels at Boulogne. What happens after that, a
particular section of Scotland Yard knows too well and laughs at. A
conspirator detests ridicule. More men have been stabbed with Lucrezia
Borgia daggers and dropped into the Thames for laughing at Head Centres
and Triangles than for betraying secrets; for this is human nature.
The Third Three conspired over whiskey cocktails and a clean sheet of
note-paper against the British Empire and all that lay therein. This
work is very like what men without discernment call politics before a
general election. You pick out and discuss, in the company of congenial
friends, all the weak points in your opponents' organisation, and
unconsciously dwell upon and exaggerate all their mishaps, till it seems
to you a miracle that the hated party holds together for an hour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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