He could play the guitar delightfully, and wore his knife down behind his coat-collar.
The second was "Major" Galahad Shaughnessy.

I imagine I can see him, in his white duck, brass-buttoned roundabout, with his sabreless belt peeping out beneath, all his boyishness in his sea-blue eyes, leaning lightly against the door-post of the Cafe des Exiles as a child leans against his mother, running his fingers over a basketful of fragrant limes, and watching his chance to strike some solemn Creole under the fifth rib with a good old Irish joke.
Old D'Hemecourt drew him close to his bosom.

The Spanish Creoles were, as the old man termed it, both cold and hot, but never warm.

Major Shaughnessy was warm, and it was no uncommon thing to find those two apart from the others, talking in an undertone, and playing at confidantes like two schoolgirls.

The kind old man was at this time drifting close up to his sixtieth year.