Patrick Hogan climbed to his feet, pushing the table out and almost upsetting it in his eagerness. He cupped his hands to his mouth and split the general hubbub with a stentorian shout.
"Hey, Cookie."
His coat was rucked up to his hips from the way he had been sitting, and as he lurched there his right hip pocket was only a few inches from Simon's face. Quite calmly and almost mechanically the Saint's eyes traced the outlines of the object that bulged in the pocket under the rough cloth — even before he moved to catch a blue-black gleam of metal down in the slight gape of the opening.
Then he lighted a cigarette with extreme thoughtfulness, digesting the new and uncontrovertible fact that Patrick Hogan, that simple spontaneous child of nature, was painting the town with a roscoe in his pants.
3
Cookie sat down with them, and Hogan said: "This is me friend Tom Simons, a foine sailor an' an old goat with the gals. We were drunk together in Murmansk-or I was drunk anyway."
"How do you do, Tom," Cookie said.
"Mustn't grumble," said the Saint. " 'Ow's yerself?"
"Tired. And I've still got two shows to do at my own place."
"I certainly did enjoy 'earing yer sing, ma'm."