Finding myself unrecognized, I called boldly for a pot and a pipe, and after some manoeuvring contrived to seat myself within earshot of Jackson and his party. They presented a strange study. Henry Rogers was boisterously excited, and not only drinking freely himself, but treating a dozen fellows round him, the cost of which he from time to time called upon "Old Flint," as he courteously styled his ancient friend, to discharge.
"Come, fork out, Old Flint!" he cried again and again. "It'll be all right, you know, in a day or two, and a few halfpence over. Shell out, old fellow! What signifies, so you're happy?"
Jackson complied with an affectation of acquiescent gayety ludicrous to behold. It was evident that each successive pull at his purse was like wrenching a tooth out of his head, and yet while the dismallest of smiles wrinkled his wolfish mouth, he kept exclaiming: "A fine lad--a fine lad! generous as a prince--generous as a prince! Good Lord, another round! He minds money no more than as if gold was as plentiful as gravel! But a fine generous lad for all that!"
Jackson, I perceived, drank considerably, as if incited thereto by compressed savageness. The pretty young wife would not taste a drop, but tears frequently filled her eyes, and bitterness pointed her words as she vainly implored her husband to leave the place and go home with her. To all her remonstrances the maudlin drunkard replied only by foolery, varied occasionally by an attempt at a line or two of the song of "The Thorn."
"But you _will_ plant thorns, Henry," rejoined the provoked wife in a louder and angrier tone than she ought perhaps to have used--"not only in my bosom, but your own, if you go on in this sottish, disgraceful way."
"Always quarrelling, always quarrelling!" remarked Jackson, pointedly, towards the bystanders--"_always_ quarrelling!"
"Who is always quarrelling?" demanded the young wife sharply. "Do you mean me and Henry?"
"I was only saying, my dear, that you don't like your husband to be so generous and free-hearted--that's all," replied Jackson, with a confidential wink at the persons near him.
"Free-hearted and generous! Fool-hearted and crazy, you mean!" rejoined the wife, who was much excited. "And you ought to be ashamed of yourself to give him money for such brutish purposes."