Gypo stood with his hands in his pockets, paying no heed to the talk. With his lips stuck out, he was looking gloomily down the lane towards the blaze of light. He was enjoying himself immensely.
“Hist, hist!” somebody cried, “Look, look.”
Two policemen crossed the blaze of light, bearing their fallen comrade between them. A few women and small boys followed them. Then two more policemen came, hauling along the man whom Gypo had struck. They were dragging him unceremoniously, holding him by the armpits, with his feet trailing along the ground and his arms dangling. They were probably under the impression that it was he who had felled their comrade. The man made an effort to wrench himself free, but they tightened their hold on his arms. He writhed and went limp again, allowing himself to be dragged lifelessly. A woman, with straggling red hair and a child on her back in a black shawl, danced in front of the policemen, screaming and gesticulating, demanding the man’s release. Then the procession passed out of sight with a mad rush of feet and a medley of indiscriminate noises.
“Let’s go back,” muttered a young man who had a slight hump.
Gypo grunted and hitched up his trousers. He put his hand to his head to settle his hat jauntily before leading the way back. But instead he uttered an oath. His little round torn hat was not there. His massive round skull stood bare under the night. It stood naked, hummocked and gashed here and there, like a badly shorn sheep. He traversed the skull with his right palm, in little flurried rushes, as if he had had a vague suspicion that the hat was hiding somewhere along the expanse of skull. Then he set out at a wild rush down the lane, followed by the crowd, to retrieve the hat, as if his life depended on it. For the first time, since Gallagher had given his word, terror again invaded his mind. If they discovered the hat they might be able to discover the identity of that ponderous fellow who had gone into the police-station. …
But no. He rushed into the road and brought up with a slither of his right foot on the wet pavement. The hat was lying in the gutter before his eyes. It lay crushed beside a flattened little cardboard chocolate box and an orange skin. It had been trodden on by a small bare foot. The impress of a wet heel was on its right side.
He grabbed it up hurriedly, punched it into shape and crammed it on to his skull with both hands. Then he laughed aloud and turned to the people.
“I thought I had lost it,” he cried affectionately. “I had it this two years.”
The crowd gaped at the hat as if it had magical properties. Others who had run up without knowing what had already happened gaped at Gypo’s humpy face, at his ruminative eyes and his eyebrows that were like snouts, at the red fat backs of his hands, as he held them to his throat tightening the white woollen muffler about his neck. There were agitated whispers on the outskirts of the ragged crowd.
“He’s stronger than any bull.”
“How? Why? What did he do?” from a dozen throats.
“Wait till I tell ye. I saw him with me own eyes send Scrapper Moloney o’ the B Division flyin’ over his shoulder like a man divin’ off the Bull Wall. I declare to me—”
“I know him well. He used to be a bobby himself once. His name is Nolan. Gypo Nolan. Didn’t ye ever hear of him?”
“Sure; usen’t he be pals with Frankie McPhillip that was shot today?”
“Sure I was,” broke in Gypo, overhearing the remark; “an’ when ye speak o’ the dead, ye might add Lord Have Mercy on him.”
“Hear, hear,” cried several voices. “Hit him a puck in the jaw. Who is he?”
A noisy argument and a scuffle arose. The culprit was hustled away, kicked and struck about the face, until he made his escape by running at full speed up the lane. Then they all crowded around Gypo again.
He stood head and shoulders above them, revelling in the attention he was attracting. He stood so impassively with his arms folded, that he might be mistaken for a great scowling statue at a distance. Then he suddenly raised his right hand and made a circular movement with it.
“Come on,” he cried wildly. “I’m goin’ to give everybody here a feed. Come on. Come on every mother’s son in this crowd that’s hungry.”
He waved his arm towards the fried-fish and chip shop and headed off towards the door.
“Hurrah!”
“Long life to ye, me darlin’ son of Erin.”
“More power to yer elbow.”
“Up the rebels.”
Gypo strode in front of the disreputable throng as proud as a king leading his courtiers. They came after him with pattering feet, panting, pushing, snivelling, emitting that variegated murmur of sound that comes from a pack of wild things in a panic, coming from afar, unseen, without a guiding reason. They were the riffraff and the jetsam of the slums, the most degraded types of those who dwell in the crowded warrens on either bank of the Liffey. But to Gypo they were an audience to acclaim his words and his deeds.
“Before long ye’ll see me cock o’ the walk around here,” he thought, as he strode into the shop. “Me an’ Gallagher. Come on, every man jack an’ woman too. Come on.”
They packed the little shop to the door. There was an overflow outside. It was warm within after the drizzling rain and the sharp wind outside. The air within the shop became almost immediately full of the vapour of human breath. The low murmur of breathing could be heard distinctly through the hum of whispered conversation.
“Hey there, towny,” cried Gypo to the shopkeeper, “chuck us a feed for all hands. I’m payin’ for the lot.”
The shopkeeper was
