The words had scarcely passed out the door into the night before a silence fell. Everybody stood still. One man stopped in the act of sucking a fishbone between his lips.
“Now carry on,” continued Gypo, “but don’t kick up a row like a lot o’ cannibals. Don’t disgrace yer country. A man ud think ye didn’t see a bite for a year.”
Then he himself turned towards the counter and asked the Italian how many meals had been served. Twenty-four meals had been served. He threw the pound note on the counter.
“Take out o’ that for three rounds for mesel’,” he said.
Then he pushed back his hat, drew a paper full of food towards him and began to eat. Without speaking, the Italian held the Treasury note between him and the electric light and peered at each side of it several times. Then he nodded his head and opened his till.
Mulholland had also strained his neck to peer at the Treasury note. He had been standing in the angle of the doorway all the time, silent and immovable. As soon as he saw the pound note, he drew out into the open and craned over the heads of the people to look at it. A neighbour noticed him, a ragged little fellow, who mistook the cause of Mulholland’s curiosity.
“Didn’t ye get any grub?” said the little man to Mulholland. “It’s yer own fault if ye didn’t. Come on, man. Don’t stand there hungry. Go on up to the counter.”
He caught Mulholland by the arm and tried to push him towards the counter.
“Leave me alone,” hissed Mulholland. “I don’t want any grub. Let go.”
“Go on up,” pursued the little fellow; “go on, man. Didn’t ye hear him say he was standin’ a round for everybody. Go on up.”
“Let go, I tell ye. Let go. I don’t want it, I say.”
But it was no use for Mulholland to refuse. The more he refused the more the little fellow was determined that he should be fed. Others joined in, eager for some amazing reason or other that Mulholland should be fed. It seemed that they suspected something indecent and improper in Mulholland’s refusal to eat.
“Call out,” cried somebody, “call out for another ration. Bring it down to him.”
“Yes, why shouldn’t he have his share as well as the next?”
“Let me alone,” cried Mulholland in a rage; “let me alone, or I’ll smash yer skull for ye.”
That put a different aspect on the question. There were a dozen angry oaths.
“So that’s what’s the matter with ye. Yer lookin’ for fight, eh?”
“Stand back an’ let me at him,” cried somebody in the rear, pressing forward.
Mulholland tried to rush for the door, but they held on to him.
“What the hell is the matter now?” thundered Gypo, striding over.
Immediately the scuffling stopped. Gypo came face to face with Mulholland. He saw Mulholland’s little eyes, gleaming and flashing like the eyes of a cat beset by dogs. There was a tense moment during which Gypo struggled with obscure suspicions. But suddenly the expression on Mulholland’s face changed into an expression of cunning intimacy. His face instead of being fierce and resentful suddenly seemed to say: “We are members of the Revolutionary Organization, you and I. Get this rabble out of my way.” Gypo immediately remembered Gallagher’s promise. He looked at Mulholland with a good-natured condescension. “Ha,” he thought, “this fellah’ll be useful.”
“Let him alone,” he cried arrogantly; “he’s a friend o’ mine. How are ye gettin’ on, Bartly?”
Then he continued carelessly, to impress the crowd with his own importance and his intimacy with the affairs of the Revolutionary Organization, which was the most impressive thing in the lives of those about him.
“Hear anythin’ yet about what I was tellin’ ye? I mean about the fellah that informed on Frankie McPhillip?”
Mulholland was amazed for a moment. What audacity! But it was not audacity. Gypo had completely forgotten the ponderous fellow in the little tattered round hat who had gone into the police-station. His sudden conceit had completely swallowed that ponderous fellow.
“He must be drunk,” thought Mulholland. He said aloud, whispering to Gypo, as he bent his head close and turned up his face sideways in his peculiar manner, “I was just passin’ an’ saw ye. I just thought I’d drop in an’ tell ye I’d be there at one o’clock. Ye know where I mean? No, we didn’t hear anythin’ yet about that.”
He winked his right eye. Gypo winked his right eye and nodded solemnly. Then Mulholland walked quickly out the door, evidently going off somewhere in a hurry. But he halted at the corner of the lane, distended his eyes and gritted his teeth. He rubbed his chin meditatively, looking at the ground. He couldn’t make it out, whatever it was, that was troubling his mind.
Gypo turned once more to the counter and continued his meal. He ate as if he were about to travel for days and he were deliberately devouring a store of food sufficient to last to the end of the journey. Behind him and on either side of him, they were talking about his strength and praising him, but he paid no heed to them. He was immersed in dreams about his future, now that Gallagher was going to take him back again into the Organization.
“Aha!” cried an old woman, with watery blue eyes and a wrinkled white face, as she shook her fist upwards at him, “I wish I had a son like ye. Me own Jimmy, Lord Have Mercy on him, was killed in the big war. He was the boy that could bate the polis! Don’t be talkin’. I seen him wan night an’ it took six o’ them to pull him off a coal cart an’ he holdin’ on to the horse’s reins all the time with wan hand while he was fightin’ them with th’ other.”
She stamped on the floor and yelled, her eyes gleaming ferociously,
