Gibbs's place was only ostensibly a saloon; in reality it was a clearing-house for thieves, where accounts were settled with men who had been robbed under circumstances that made it advisable for them to keep the matter secret, and where balances were adjusted with the police. All the thieves of the higher class--those who traveled on railway trains and steamboats, fleecing men in games of cards, those of that class who were well-dressed, well-informed, pleasant-mannered, apparently respectable, who passed everywhere for men of affairs, and stole enormous sums by means of a knowledge of human nature that was almost miraculous--were friends of Gibbs. He negotiated for them; he helped them when they were in trouble; when they were in the city they lived at his house--sometimes they lived on him. The two upper floors of his establishment, fitted like a hotel, held many strange and mysterious guests. Gibbs maintained the same relation with the guns, the big-mitt men, and sneak-thieves, and he bore the same relation to the yegg men and to the prowlers. By some marvelous tact he kept apart all these classes, so different, so antipathetic, so jealous and suspicious of one another, and when they happened to meet he kept them on terms. There never were loud words or trouble at Gibbs's. To all these classes of professional criminals he was a kind of father, an ever-ready friend who never forgot or deserted them. When they were in jail he sent lawyers to them, he provided them with delicacies, he paid their fines. Sometimes he obtained pardons and commutations for them, for he was naturally influential in politics and maintained relations with Ralph Keller, the boss of the city, that were as close as those he maintained with the police. He could provide votes for primaries, and he could do other things. The police never molested him, though now and then they threatened to, and then he was forced to increase the tribute money, already enormous. A part of his understanding with the police, a clause in the modus vivendi, was that certain friends of Gibbs's were to be harbored in the city on condition that they committed no crimes while there; now and then when a crime was committed in the city, it would be made the excuse by the police for further extortion. The detectives came and went as freely at Gibbs's as the guns, the yeggs, the prowlers, the sure-thing men, the gamblers and bunco men.
"Ah, Joe," said Gibbs, glancing at Mason.
"Dan," said Mason, as he took a chair beside Gibbs. They had spoken in low, quiet tones, yet somehow the simplicity of their greeting suggested a friendship that antedated all things of the present, stretching back into other days, recalling ties that had been formed at times and under circumstances that were lost in the past and forgotten by every one, even the police. However well the other three might have known Gibbs, they delicately implied that their relation could not be so close as that of Joe Mason, and they were silent for an instant, as if they would pay a tribute to it. But the silence held, losing all at once its deference to the friendship of Gibbs and Mason, and taking on a quality of constraint, cold and repellent, plainly due to Archie's presence. Archie felt this instantly, and Mason felt it, for he knew the ways of his kind, and, turning to Gibbs, he said:
"A friend of mine; met him in the boob." And then he said: "Mr. Gibbs, let me introduce Mr. Koerner."
Gibbs looked at Archie keenly and gave him his hand. Then Mason introduced Archie to the three other men--Jackson, Mandell and Keenan. Gibbs, meanwhile, turned to his wife, who had taken a chair against the wall and folded her arms.
"Get Joe and his friend something to drink, Kate," he commanded. The woman rose wearily, asked them what they wished to drink, and went into the bar-room for the whisky glasses.
The little company had accepted Archie tentatively on Mason's assurance, but they resumed their conversation guardedly and without spontaneity. Mason, however, gave it a start again when he turned to Jackson and said:
"Well, Curly, I read about your trouble. I was glad you wasn't ditched. I thought for a while there that you was the fall guy, all right."
Jackson laughed without mirth and flecked the ash from his cigarette.
"Yes, Joe, I come through."