The louder such roysterers talk, the more they rap out oaths, the oftener they bellow for the waiters and slap them on the back, the better they think they are welcome in a house of public entertainment.
Amidst the tumult that came from a remote part of the inn a door was heard to open, and a voice was distinguishable above the rest calling lustily for the landlord.
"I must go off to them," said that worthy.

"They expect me to stand host as well as landlord, and sit with them at their drinking." When the door closed again, Sim lifted the boy on to his knee, and looked at him with eyes full of tenderness.

The little fellow returned his gaze with a bewildered expression that seemed to ask a hundred silent questions of poor Sim's wrinkled cheeks and long, gray, straggling hair.
"I mind me when my own lass was no bigger nor this," said Sim.
Ralph did not answer, but turned his head aside and listened.
"She was her mammy's darling, too, she was." Sim's voice was thick in his throat.
"And mine as well," he added.

"We used to say to her, laughing and teasing like, 'Who will ye marry, Rotie ?'--we called her Rotie then,--'who will ye marry, Rotie, when ye grow up to be a big, big woman ?' 'My father,' she would say, and throw her little arms about my neck and kiss me." Sim raised his hard fingers to his forehead to cover his eyes.
Ralph still sat silent, his head aside, looking into the fire.
"That's many and many a year agone; leastways, so it seems.

My wife was living then.