“There's too much talking,” returned Paul. “Only the other day a bull was telling me that I'm credited with being the first guy along the Bowery to carry a gun.”
“He's crazy,” broke in Harrington, who with the lovely Goldie Cora had joined the group. “There were cannisters by the ton along the Bowery before ever you was pupped.”
The Irish Wop, whose mind ran altogether upon politics, glanced up from a paper.
“Spakin' av th' campaign,” said he, “how comes it things is so quiet? No one givin' th' banks a bawlin' out, no one soakin' th' railroads, no one handin' th' hot wallops to th' trusts! Phwat's gone wrong wit' 'em? I've found but wan man—jusht wan—bein' th' skate who's writin' in th' pa-a-aper here,”—and the Wop held up the paper as Exhibit A—“who acts loike he has somethin' to hand out. Lishten: After buck-dancin' a bit, he ups and calls Willyum Jinnins Bryan th' 'modern Brutus,' says 'Cæsarism is abroad,' an' that Willyum Jinnins is th' only laddybuck who can put it on th' bum.”
“It's one of them hot-air students,” said Harrington.
“But about this Brutus-Cæsar thing? Are they wit' th' organization?”
“It's what a swell mouth-piece like Bourke Cock-ran calls a 'figger of speech',” interjected Slimmy, ever happy to be heard concerning the ancients. “Cesar an' Brutus were a couple of long-ago Dagoes. Accordin' to th' dope they lived an' croaked two thousand years ago.”
“Only a pair av old wops, was they! An' dead an' gone at that! Sure I thought be th' way this writin' gezebo carried on about 'em they was right here on th' job, cuttin' ice. An' they're nothin' more'n a brace av old dead Guineas after all!”
The Wop mused a moment over the unprofitable meanness of the discovery. Then his curiosity began to brighten up a trifle.
“How did yez come to be so hep to 'em, Slimmy?”