Peter looked at him anxiously, but finding that Stumpy had paused for reflection, he barked once, and waited.
“That’s just it,” said Stumpy, eagerly. “The divil’s own cousin cudn’t tell if they was Mormon missionaries or retail grocers on a holiday trip. If it was down the river, now, they’d be cotton factors maybe, but whhat’d a cotton factor be doin’ in Brownsville, I do’ know. An’ the drink! Glory be, but they’re divils for drink. An’ Long Mike on’y a week after the last wan.”
This last remark called for no explanation in Brownsville, where Long Mike’s sprees were events in municipal history. Peter whined lugubriously.
“An’ it’s right ye are, Peter,” said Stumpy. “If he starts in again now there’ll be an end. Didn’t he wipe out Gallagher’s place from door to door, wid the glory o’ drink in him, two weeks ago? It’s none too peaceful at the best, that Brownsville is, but wid him drunk it’s hell. An’ it’s drunk he’ll be again if thim two strangers stays. An’ I do be thinkin’, Peter, that if he’s drunk again afore the change o’ the moon, he’ll sober up in the life everlastin’.”
At this Peter howled long and loud, and Stumpy lapsed into silence.
To them presently appeared Sam. The exigencies of business required Sam’s presence in the barroom, as a usual thing, regardless of the day, or time of day, he being the only dispenser of potable necessities in Brownsville, but the stress of Saturday nights was commonly followed by an interval of calm on Sabbath mornings, and his custom was to go abroad for air on those occasions.
Seating himself on a piece of driftwood, he chewed the end of his cigar for a time, and then observed: “It was a large night.”
“It was,” said Stumpy. “Is thim two strangers stayin’ here long, I don’t know?” Stumpy’s brogue defied spelling.
“They’ll be dead if they do,” said Sam. “I’ve saw wild men afore, but I never seen two men try to pull up the Mississippi River by the roots.”
“If it was thim ’ud die,” said Stumpy, gloomily. “An’ Hennessy. We c’d do widout Hennessy an’ wan or more others. But I do be thinkin’ Long Mike is off again.”