But the bullet had glanced, and Gallagher was only stunned. Sitting up a moment later he said:
“Will ye’s all get out o’ my house? I have confidential affairs to discuss wid Misthress Gallagher.”
“We will,” said the three friends, as they departed, dragging the gamblers with them.
Then the other door opened.
“Is it you, Pat?” said a female voice.
“It is,” said Gallagher, “an’ I’d like my supper. But first ye’ll give me a bit o’ a wet rag till I wipe my head.”
VII
GALLAGHER STRIPPED
“Sure I do be thinkin’ it’s like playin’ lotthery,” said Stumpy, as he sat one day in meditative mood near the steamboat-landing with Deaf Dan. It was a hot afternoon and there had been a long, sociable silence between them when Stumpy yawned and shot off his comparison. It was uttered in stentorian tones, for none could converse otherwise with Deaf Dan.
“As bein’ how?” inquired Deaf Dan. “Who’s a lotthery?”
“All of us,” said Stumpy. “Iv’ry marnin’ we do put in, loike the suckers that buys thim little printed bits o’ paper wid a big number on ’em, an’ lies. An’ thin we set around, like bumps on a log, waitin’ for to see what the drawin’ ’ll be, the same as thim same suckers does. Mostly it’s blanks. Sildom it is that anythin’ happens in Brownsville. But now an’ again, some wan’ll dhraw a proize. Maybe it’s a chanst at th’ red liquor, an’ maybe it’s a shindy, an’ sometimes it’s a game of dhraw-poker, but annyhow it’s a proize, such as it may be.”