"
"She took me for Maclean, I tell you," Pritchard insisted. "Why--why--to
listen to him you wouldn't think that only yesterday----"
"Pritch," said Pyecroft, "be warned in time. If we begin tellin' what we
know about each other we'll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention
aggravated desertion on several occasions----"
"Never anything more than absence without leaf--I defy you to prove it,"
said the Sergeant hotly. "An' if it comes to that how about Vancouver in
'87?"
"How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
Niven...?"
"Surely you were court martialled for that?" I said. The story of Boy
Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
"Yes, we were court-martialled to rights," said Pritchard, "but we should
have been tried for murder if Boy Niven 'adn't been unusually tough. He
told us he had an uncle 'oo'd give us land to farm. 'E said he was born at
the back o' Vancouver Island, and _all_ the time the beggar was a balmy
Barnado Orphan!"
"_But_ we believed him," said Pyecroft. "I did--you did--Paterson did--an'
'oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards--him with
the mouth?"
"Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I 'aven't thought of 'im in years," said
Pritchard. "Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an' George Anstey and Moon. We were
very young an' very curious.
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