Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/229

 well, Ryder. The wine is damned bad, as I live.”

“And the more fool I,” says I, “when there is a gross of generous burgundy a-waiting for me in the cellars of the ‘Bull’s Head,’ in the trust of Mr Shackleton.”

I regarded him anxiously, for Shackleton’s was a name he must have known very well, and the “Bull’s Head” would have aroused the suspicions of a common dungfork. But he was nobly primed, and there was never a sign in his countenance save the marks of drink in his rolling eyes.

“’Sblood!” says he, “we will drink it all.”

I shook my head. “How shall it be fetched?” I asks him dolorously.

The Ordinary paused. “I will charge my own person with the job,” he said.

“But it will not be delivered to you,” said I. The Ordinary was too drunken to consider this difficulty, and so said nothing. “Wait,” says I, feigning a thought. “If your reverence is willing for the mission, why I think we may compass it.”