'I mind,' said McQuirk, slowly, ''twas in the second barrel we opened. I mind the blue piece of paper pasted on the side of it.'
'We've got it now,' cried Riley. ''Twas that we lacked. 'Tis the water that does the trick. Everything else we had right. Hurry, man, and get two bottles of 'pollinaris from the bar, while I figure out the proportionments with me pencil.'
An hour later Con strolled down the sidewalk toward Kenealy's cafe. Thus faithful employees haunt, during their recreation hours, the vicinity where they labor, drawn by some mysterious attraction.
A police patrol wagon stood at the side door. Three able cops were half carrying, half hustling Riley and McQuirk up its rear steps. The eyes and faces of each bore the bruises and cuts of sanguinary and assiduous conflict. Yet they whooped with strange joy, and directed upon the police the feeble remnants of their pugnacious madness.
'Began fighting each other in the back room,' explained Kenealy to Con. 'And singing! That was worse. Smashed everything pretty much up. But they're good men. They'll pay for everything. Trying to invent some new kind of cocktail, they was. I'll see they come out all right in the morning.'
Con sauntered into the back room to view the battlefield. As he went through the hall Katherine was just coming down the stairs.
'Good evening again, Mr. Lantry,' said she. 'And is there no news from the weather yet?'
'Still threatens r-rain,' said Con, slipping past with red in his smooth, pale cheek.
Riley and McQuirk had indeed waged a great and friendly battle. Broken bottles and glasses were everywhere. The room was full of alcohol fumes; the floor was variegated with spirituous puddles.
On the table stood a 32-ounce glass graduated measure. In the bottom of it were two tablespoonfuls of liquid--a bright golden liquid that seemed to hold the sunshine a prisoner in its auriferous depths.
Con smelled it. He tasted it. He drank it.
As he returned through the hall Katherine was just going up the stairs.
'No news yet, Mr. Lantry?' she asked with her teasing laugh.
Con lifted her clear from the floor and held her there.
'The news is,' he said, 'that we're to be married.'
'Put me down, sir!' she cried indignantly, 'or I will--Oh, Con, where, oh, wherever did you get the nerve to say it?'
Harlem.
Mrs. Fink had dropped into Mrs. Cassidy's flat one flight below.
'Ain't it a beaut?' said Mrs. Cassidy.
She turned her face proudly for her friend Mrs. Fink to see. One eye was nearly closed, with a great, greenish-purple bruise around it. Her lip was cut and bleeding a little and there were red finger- marks on each side of her neck.
'My husband wouldn't ever think of doing that to me,' said Mrs. Fink, concealing her envy.
'I wouldn't have a man,' declared Mrs. Cassidy, 'that didn't beat me up at least once a week. Shows he thinks something of you. Say! but that last dose Jack gave me wasn't no homeopathic one. I can see stars yet. But he'll be the sweetest man in town for the rest of the week to make up for it. This eye is good for theater tickets and a silk shirt waist at the very least.'
'I should hope,' said Mrs. Fink, assuming complacency, 'that Mr. Fink is too much of a gentleman ever to raise his hand against me.'
'Oh, go on, Maggie!' said Mrs. Cassidy, laughing and applying witch hazel, 'you're only jealous. Your old man is too frapped and slow to ever give you a punch. He just sits down and practises physical culture with a newspaper when he comes home--now ain't that the truth?'
'Mr. Fink certainly peruses of the papers when he comes home,' acknowledged Mrs. Fink, with a toss of her head; 'but he certainly don't ever make no Steve O'Donnell out of me just to amuse himself-- that's a sure thing.'
Mrs. Cassidy laughed the contented laugh of the guarded and happy matron. With the air of Cornelia exhibiting her jewels, she drew down the collar of her kimono and revealed another treasured bruise, maroon- colored, edged with olive and orange--a bruise now nearly well, but still to memory dear.
Mrs. Fink capitulated. The formal light in her eye softened to envious admiration. She and Mrs. Cassidy had been chums in the downtown paper-box factory before they had married, one year before. Now she and her man occupied the flat above Mame and her man. Therefore she could not put on airs with Mame.
'Don't it hurt when he soaks you?' asked Mrs. Fink, curiously.
'Hurt!'--Mrs. Cassidy gave a soprano scream of delight. 'Well, say-- did you ever have a brick house fall on you?--well, that's just the way it feels--just like when they're digging you out of the ruins. Jack's got a left that spells two matinees and a new pair of Oxfords--and his right!--well, it takes a trip to Coney and six pairs of openwork, silk lisle threads to make that good.'
'But what does he beat you for?' inquired Mrs. Fink, with wide-open eyes.
'Silly!' said Mrs. Cassidy, indulgently. 'Why, because he's full. It's generally on Saturday nights.'
'But what cause do you give him?' persisted the seeker after knowledge.
'Why, didn't I marry him? Jack comes in tanked up; and I'm here, ain't I? Who else has he got a right to beat? I'd just like to catch him once beating anybody else! Sometimes it's because supper ain't ready; and sometimes it's because it is. Jack ain't particular about causes. He just lushes till he remembers he's married, and then he makes for home and does me up. Saturday nights I just move the furniture with sharp corners out of the
