"Plenty!" Jim laughed. "All right, Billy, I'll let him go myself."
CHAPTER IX
THE BILLABONG DANCE
The slope beyond is green and still,
And in my dreams I dream,
The hill is like an Irish hill
Beside an Irish stream.
KENDALL.
"Don't dress to-night, if you don't mind, Cecil," said Jim, putting his
head into his cousin's room.
"Not dress?" Evening clothes were part of Cecil's training, and he kept
to them rigidly, putting on each night for dinner what Murty O'Toole,
having seen in wonder, referred to as "a quare little
cobbed-shwaller-tail jacket." He regarded with fine scorn the cheerful
carelessness of the boys where clothes were concerned. To Jim and Wally
who were generally immensely occupied until dinner-time, and more often
than not had further plans for the time following, putting on
regulation evening dress seemed a proceeding little short of lunatic;
but since Cecil "liked that sort of thing," they let him alone.
To-night, however, was different, and when Cecil repeated his query
half impatiently, Jim nodded.
"No. Didn't we tell you? It's the dance in the loft."
"Oh--don't you people ever dress for dances then?"
"Not for these dances," Jim answered. "It's the men's spree--all the
hands and their friends; and you can be jolly well certain they won't
run to dress clothes.
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