"I'd like to have seen you an' him together, Bill," he went on, and a broad smile accompanied his remarks. "Could 'a' give you about all you could handle, Bill, if size counts for anything. Anyhow—poor old Bob came in here one night—it was a night like this—only there was a regular howlin' wind and the rain was heavy. I hears a poundin' at the door—I was all alone—an' I gets up and opens it. An' there stands Old Bob—feet bare—shirt gone—head bare—pants all in rags—an' mud an' water—it was awful!"
He paused in an effort, evidently, to call the picture more vividly to mind.
"An' I says, 'Bob, what's wrong?' An' then I knew right away what it was—from the grin he gave me. But I says, 'Come in an' get something'. An' poor old Bob comes in an' sits down an' starts cryin' like a baby. An' I says, 'Bob, you're lookin' bad,' but he wouldn't talk. I sat with him all night an' the next day we sent him out with a couple of boys that was totin' freight."
For a moment Mike paused while he turned to pick up an empty glass and look at it.
"My God," he said, looking into the glass, "to think of old Bob losin' his head out there—just for the sake of someone to talk to. I'll never forget it."
"It'll get to anyone if he's only left alone long enough," commented the policeman, and he went on to tell of a similar case that had come under his observation in the West.
"There's just one thing this country needs right now, Mike—an' it needs it bad," McCartney offered by way of supplementing what had just been said. As he spoke he held a lighted match in his hand ready to apply to a cigarette he had just rolled.
"You mean—" Cheney waited.
For a moment McCartney was silent while he applied the match to his cigarette.
"I mean—"