"Rum, begorra!"

"What is it, Paddy?" asked Emmeline.

"WHERE did you say you got it--in the ould bar'l, did you say?"
asked Mr Button, who seemed dazed and stunned as if by a blow.

"Yes; I pulled the cork thing out--"

"DID YIZ PUT IT BACK?"

"Yes."

"Oh, glory be to God! Here have I been, time out of mind, sittin' on
an ould empty bar'l, with me tongue hangin' down to me heels for
the want of a drink, and it full of rum all the while!"

He took a sip of the stuff, tossed the lot off, closed his lips tight
to keep in the fumes, and shut one eye.

Emmeline laughed.

Mr Button scrambled to his feet. They followed him through the
chapparel till they reached the water source. There lay the little
green barrel; turned over by the restless Dick, it lay with its bung
pointing to the leaves above. You could see the hollow it had made
in the soft soil during the years. So green was it, and so like an
object of nature, a bit of old tree-bole, or a lichen-stained
boulder, that though the whalemen had actually watered from the
source, its real nature had not been discovered.