"
"I have just two left, Terence, so we will smoke them together, and I have
got a bottle of dacent spirits. Think of that, me boy; thirty-two days
without spirits! They will never believe me when I go home and tell 'em I
went without it for thirty-two mortal days."
"Well, you have had wine, O'Grady."
"It's poor stuff by the side of the cratur, still I am not saying that it
wasn't a help. But it was cold comfort, Terence, a mighty cold comfort."
"You are looking well on it, anyhow. And how is the wound?"
"Och, I have nigh forgot I ever had one, save when it comes to ateing. Tim
has to cut my food up for me, and I never sit down to a male without
wishing bad cess to the French. When we get back I will have a patent
machine for holding a fork fixed on somehow. It goes against me grain to
have me food cut up as if I was a baby; if it wasn't for that I should not
miss my hand one way or the other. In fact, on the march it has been a
comfort that I have only had five fingers to freeze, instead of ten. There
is a compensation in all things. So we are going to fight them at last?
There is no chance of the fleet coming to take us off before that, I
hope?" he asked, anxiously, "for we should all break our hearts if we were
obliged to go without a fight."
"I don't think there is any chance of that, O'Grady, though I should be
very glad if there were.
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