»One monica's as good as another, I find, at my time of life. And everybody hands it out to me anyway. And I need an umbrella when it rains to keep from getting drowned, an' all the rest of it.«

»I ain't used to company – don't like it,« Slim growled. »So if you guys want to stick around, mind your step, that's all, mind your step.«

He fished from his pocket a cigar stump, self-evidently shot from the gutter, and prepared to put it in his mouth to chew. Then he changed his mind, glared at his companions savagely, and unrolled his bindle. Appeared in his hand a druggist's bottle of alki.

»Well,« he snarled, »I suppose I gotta give you cheap skates a drink when I ain't got more'n enough for a good petrification for myself.«

Almost a softening flicker of light was imminent in his withered face as he beheld the others proudly lift their hats and exhibit their own supplies.

»Here's some water for the mixin's,« Whiskers said, proffering his tomato-can of river slush. »Stockyards just above,« he added apologetically. »But they say –«

»Huh!« Slim snapped short, mixing the drink. »I've drunk worse'n stockyards in my time.«

Yet when all was ready, cans of alki in their solitary hands, the three things that had once been men hesitated, as if of old habit, and next betrayed shame as if at self-exposure.

Whiskers was the first to brazen it.

»I've sat in at many a finer drinking,« he bragged.

»With the pewter,« Slim sneered.

»With the silver,« Whiskers corrected.

Slim turned a scorching eye-interrogation on Fatty.

Fatty nodded.

»Beneath the salt,« said Slim.

»Above it,« came Fatty's correction. »I was born above it, and I've never traveled second class. First or steerage, but no intermediate in mine.«

»Yourself?« Whiskers queried of Slim.

»In broken glass to the Queen, God bless her,« Slim answered, solemnly, without snarl or sneer.

»In the pantry?« Fatty insinuated.

Simultaneously Slim reached for his quoit, and Whiskers and Fatty for their rocks.

»Now don't let's get feverish,« Fatty said, dropping his own weapon. »We aren't scum. We're gentlemen. Let's drink like gentlemen.«

»Let it be a real drinking,« Whiskers approved.

»Let's get petrified,« Slim agreed. »Many a distillery's flowed under the bridge since we were gentlemen; but let's forget the long road we've traveled since, and hit our doss in the good old fashion in which every gentleman went to bed when we were young.«

»My father done it – did it,« Fatty concurred and corrected, as old recollections exploded long-sealed brain-cells of connotation and correct usage.

The other two nodded a descent from similar fathers and elevated their tin cans of alcohol.

 

By the time each had finished his own bottle and from his rags fished forth a second one, their brains were well-mellowed and a-glow, although they had not got around to telling their real names. But their English had improved. They spoke it correctly, while the argo of tramp-land ceased from their lips.

»It's my constitution,« Whiskers was explaining. »Very few men could go through what I have and live to tell the tale. And I never took any care of myself. If what the moralists and the physiologists say were true, I'd have been dead long ago. And it's the same with you two. Look at us, at our advanced years, carousing as the young ones don't dare, sleeping out in the open on the ground, never sheltered from frost nor rain nor storm, never afraid of pneumonia or rheumatism that would put half the young ones on their backs in hospital.«

He broke off to mix another drink, and Fatty took up the tale.

»And we've had our fun,« he boasted. »And speaking of sweethearts and all,« he cribbed from Kipling, »›We've rouged and we've ranged –‹«

»›In our time,‹« Slim completed the crib for him.

»I should say so, I should say so,« Fatty confirmed. »And been loved by princesses – at least I have.«

»Go on and tell us about it,« Whiskers urged. »The night's young, and why shouldn't we remember back to the roofs of kings?«

Nothing loath, Fatty cleared his throat for the recital and cast about in his mind for the best way to begin.

»It must be known that I came of good family. Percival Delaney, let us say, yes, let us say Percival Delaney, was not unknown at Oxford once upon a time – not for scholarship, I am frank to admit; but the gay young dogs of that day, if any be yet alive, would remember him –«

»My people came over with the Conqueror,« Whiskers interrupted, extending his hand to Fatty's in acknowledgment of the introduction.

»What name?« Fatty queried. »I did not seem quite to catch it.«

»Delarouse, Chauncey Delarouse. The name will serve as well as any.«

Both completed the handshake and glanced to Slim.

»Oh, well, while we're about it ...« Fatty urged.

»Bruce Cadogan Cavendish,« Slim growled morosely. »Go on, Percival, with your princesses and the roofs of kings.«

»Oh, I was a rare young devil,« Percival obliged, »after I played ducks and drakes at home and sported out over the world. And I was some figure of a man before I lost my shape – polo, steeple-chasing, boxing, wrestling, swimming.