'Let him pay it back at the rate of three bob a month, sir,' suggested the lieutenant. 'I'm not particular. He looks so damned miserable at not being able to get away on leave that I must do something. Don't tell him it comes from me, though. He won't take it if he knows that.'
'All right. I'll see to it,' the fleet paymaster acquiesced, smiling. 'I suppose,' he asked jokingly, 'you wouldn't lend a poor old buffer like me twenty or thirty pounds to buy the wife a turkey and a plum-pudding?'
'I'd watch it, sir!' Tickle laughed. 'What about that new car you bought a fortnight ago?'
'That's why I want to borrow from you,' Cashley grinned. 'However, I'll fix Martin's money up for you, though I must say I think you're a tender-hearted fool, Tickle. You'll be badly had one of these days.'
Tickle merely smiled. The prospect did not alarm him.
So the next morning, at seven-thirty, Pincher, arrayed in his best clothes, left the ship with a sweet smile and a little bundle of necessaries done up in a blue-striped handkerchief. An hour later he was sitting in a third-class carriage on his way to London, munching a doubtful-looking sausage-roll, and listening to a slightly intoxicated sailor next to him, who insisted on giving the company what he called 'a little moosic.' It consisted of a few fragmentary remarks in a deep-bass rumble about the perils of a sailor's life, sudden hiccups as full stops, and frequent gurgling noises and sounds of enjoyment as the songster upended a quart bottle of Bass's light dinner ale, and applied the business end to his mouth. He eventually finished the song and the bottle at the same time, and, shying the latter playfully through the open window, volunteered to fight the whole carriage. This pleasure being denied him, he solemnly kissed the company all round, and then went comfortably off to sleep with his mouth wide open, his head resting affectionately on Pincher's shoulder, and his feet on the opposite man's lap. Thus he remained until they arrived at Waterloo, where, on disembarking, he never noticed that one of his carriage-mates, by the skilful use of a burnt cork, had decorated his upper lip with a large black moustache.
History does not relate if he arrived home in this condition, for, after vainly endeavouring to induce various laughing porters and the amused guard of the train to 'come an' 'ave a wet, ole dear!' and then, when they refused, wanting to show there was no ill-feeling by exchanging headgear, he was last seen proceeding at three and a quarter knots on rather an erratic course towards the nearest refreshment-room.