"The crowd's to be at Andrews' by 4, and it's
fully that now; so come on at once. We'll go 'round by Munson's and
have Hi send a boy to look after your horse. Come; and I want to
introduce my friend here to you, and we'll all want to smoke and
jabber a little in appropriate seclusion. Come on." And the impatient
Major had linked arms with his hesitating ally and myself, and was
turning the corner of the street.
"It's an hour's work I have yet wid the squawkers," mildly protested
Tommy, still hanging back and stepping a trifle high; "but, as one
Irishman would say til another, 'Ye're wrong, but I'm wid ye!'"
And five minutes later the three of us had joined a very jolly party
in a snug back room, with
"The chamber walls depicted all around
With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound,
And the hurt deer,"
and where, as well, drifted over the olfactory intelligence a certain
subtle, warm-breathed aroma, that genially combatted the chill and
darkness of the day without, and, resurrecting long-dead Christmases,
brimmed the grateful memory with all comfortable cheer.
A dozen hearty voices greeted the appearance of Tommy and the Major,
the latter adroitly pushing the jovial Irishman to the front, with a
mock-heroic introduction to the general company, at the conclusion of
which Tommy, with his hat tucked under the left elbow, stood bowing
with a grace of pose and presence Lord Chesterfield might have
applauded.
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