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In talking about these useful and very necessary servants, some of the comments indulged in by the gentleman who first invited me into the barracks are well worth repeating: "Be jabbers, an' yeez have to kape wide awake all night to swear at the lazy divils, in orther to git a wink av shlape" and "The moment yeez dhrap ashlape, yeez are awake," are choice specimens, heard in reference to the punkah-wallahs' confirmed habit of dozing off in the silent watches of the night.
Four times a year the spell's put on me, sor, and gin I shlape it over, I'm a good man in between, sor, but that one time, sor, Mulqueen was sint to Lunnon, sor, and I missed me shlape fer mischief. "Well, thinks I, I'll go to Meriky and see me Johnny, me youngest; most loike they're more used to the shlapin' spells out there where all is free; but they wasn't!
A Roosian sabre claved the shoulder and neck of me, an' down I wint, and over me trampled a squadron of Roosian harses, an' I stopped thinkin'. Aw, so aisy, so aisy, I slipped away out av the fight! The shriekin' and roarin' kept dwindlin' and dwindlin', and I dropped all into a foine shlape, so quiet, so aisy.
"Och! yees ud like to shlape an shnore an' grunt and rowl over an' shnore agin the whole blissid time," snapped Sweeny, always angered by a word of discouragement. "Yees ought to have a dozen o' thim nagurs wid their long poles to make a fither bed for yees an' tuck up the blankets an' spat the pilly. Why didn't ye shlape all ye wanted to whin yees was in the boat?"
A Roosian sabre claved the shoulder and neck of me, an' down I wint, and over me trampled a squadron of Roosian harses, an' I stopped thinkin'. Aw, so aisy, so aisy, I slipped away out av the fight! The shriekin' and roarin' kept dwindlin' and dwindlin', and I dropped all into a foine shlape, so quiet, so aisy.
"Wentworth asked him what he meant by the blood-drip. "'Shure, he said, ''tis the bhlood av thim as ould Black Mick 'way back in the ould days kilt in their shlape. 'Twas a feud as he pretendid to patch up, an' he invited thim the O'Haras they was siventy av thim. An' he fed thim, an' shpoke soft to thim, an' thim thrustin' him, sthayed to shlape with him.
An' I was laid in among thim, and Sergeant-Major Kilpatrick shtandin' there an' looking at me an' sayin': 'Poor b'y poor b'y! "But when they threw another man on tap of me, I waked up out o' that beautiful shlape, and give him a kick. 'Yer not polite, says I to mesilf. Shure, I couldn't shpake there was no strength in me.
I'm dead for shlape!" And instantly his eyes closed; his breathing was deep and sonorous. The captain watched him for a long moment, then sat down and laying a hand on the sleeping man's wrist, he counted the pulse carefully. It was irregular and feeble. "Time is all he needs," muttered McTee to himself, and he sat staring before him, dreaming.
Bedad, yer gin wud be ez hot ez ginger; an' it's preshus little toime ye'd hev fur tournin' down the whisky, ez ye did, faith, the t'other day, whin ye wor brought up 'fore Noomber One on the quarther-deck, sure, fur goin' to shlape on the watch! Begorrah, if ye don't look out sharp, Misther Sharp, ye'll hev the divvle whiskin' ye off wid his tail, sure, fur thet same whisky ye're talkin' of!"
Oi'd dropped off into a swate shlape afther thet chap made sich a row toomblin' out ov his hammick thet wor next moine, bein' three sheets an' more, faith, in the woind whin he come off from shore; an' I dramed ez how, Tom, we two wor aboord the Active, which Oi wor lookin' over ounly yisterday whin Oi come by Pitch-House Jetty, where she's lyin' preparin' for say.
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