“They'd no more miss it than they'd miss a play at the theater,” remarked my friend, who saw where my glance was directed.
About a ginmill, on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street, a crowd had collected. A patrol wagon was backing up.
An officer in uniform tossed a prisoner into the wagon, with no more ceremony than should attend the handling of a bag of bran.
“It's Dubillier!” exclaimed Whitey Dutch, naming the prisoner.
The two Five Pointers had taken position on the edge of the crowd, directly in front of my friend and me.
“There's Ike!” said Slimmy, as two policemen were seen pushing their way towards the patrol wagon, Ike the Blood between them. “Them bulls is holdin' him up, too, an' his face is as pale as paper! By thunder, they've nailed him!”
“I told you them Gophers were tough students,” was the comment of Whitey Dutch.
My friend began forcing his way forward. As he plowed through the crowd, Whitey Dutch and Slimmy, having advantage of his wake, kept close at his heels.
Slimmy threw me a whispered word: “Be th' way th' mob is actin', I t'ink Ike copped one.” Slimmy, before the lapse of many minutes, was again at my side, attended by Whitey Dutch. The pair wore that manner of quick yet neutral appreciation which belongs—we'll say—with such as English army officers visiting the battlefield of Santiago while the action between the Spaniards and the Americans is being waged. It wasn't their fight, it was an Eastman-Gopher fight, but as fullblown Five Pointers it became them vastly to be present. Also, they might learn something.
“Ike dropped one,” nodded Whitey Dutch, answering the question in my eye. “It's Ledwich.”