"Yes," was the response, "I saw him."
"An' will he do it for ye?" was the next passing question.
"He'd do it for me if he could, but he can't," returned M'Cann.
"He can't?" asked Malone. "An' why not?"
"Because the appointment isn't his, he says," the saloon-keeper explained. "He'd be glad to give the place to a friend of mine if he could, he told me—but there's the civil-service. He's got to follow that, he says, more by token that they raised such a row the last time he tried to beat the law."
"But I'm a veteran," pleaded the other, "I served my three years. The civil-service has got to count that, hasn't it?"
"Ye might be on the list this very minute, and it wouldn't do any good," the saloon-keeper responded; "there's veterans to burn on the list now!"
"My post will recommend me, if I ask 'em—won't that help?"
"Nothing will help, he says," M'Cann explained. "It isn't a pull that'll do ye any good, or I could get ye the job myself, couldn't I?"
"There ain't no influence that'll help me, then?" was the elder man's next question.