was his first contribution to the conversation, “d’ you remember it was at a dock that you and I first met? It was night, blacker than Tophet, and raining, and you came ashore wet as a rag. You were the lonesomest, chilliest, most forlorn little tike I ever saw; but, by the eternal, you were trying not to cry!”
“Lonesome? I rather think so!” I echoed with conviction. “Wynne and his wife brought me over; he played poker all the way, and she read novels in her berth. And I heard every one say that I was an orphan, and it was very, very sad. Well, I was never lonely after that, Dunny.” My hand met his half-way.
The next time that he broke silence was upon the ferry, when he urged on me a fat wallet stuffed with plutocratic-looking notes.
“In case anything should happen,” ran his muttered explanation. I have never needed Dunny’s money,—his affection is another matter,—but he can spare it, and this time I took it because I saw he wanted me to.
As we approached the Jersey City piers, he seemed to shrink and grow tired, to take on a good ten years beyond his hale and hearty age. With every glance I stole at him a lump in my throat grew bigger, and in the end, bending forward, I laid a hand on his knee.
“Look here, Dunny,” I demanded, not looking at him, “do you mean half of what you were saying last evening—or the hundredth part? After all, there’ll be a chance to fight here before we’re many months older. If you just say the word, old fellow, I’ll be with you to-night—and hang the trip!”
But Dunny, though he wrung my hand gratefully and choked and glared out of the window, would hear of no such arrangement, repudiated it, indeed, with scorn.
“No, my boy,” he declared. “I don’t say it for a minute. I like your going. I wouldn’t give a tinker’s dam for you, whatever that is, if you didn’t want to do something for those fellows over there. I won’t even say to be careful, for you can’t if you do your duty—only, don’t you be too all-fired foolhardy, even for war medals, Dev.”
“Oh, I was born to be hanged, not shot,” I assured him, almost prophetically. “I’ll take care of myself, and I’ll write you now and then—”
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