There was an embarrassed pause. Lanagan had a caustic tip to his tongue and they awaited it now. He studied Bradley without expression, leaning against the door sill. But, curiously enough, there was no outburst. It was always difficult to foresay just what form Lanagan’s humour would take.
“Charley,” he said at last to Bradley, and there shaded into his voice a subtle colouring of unconscious pathos, “What have I ever done to you? I have never done you dirt; nor any man in the business dirt. I have played the game square. Why is it that I am always singled out like that? Have I ever betrayed my paper or my friends? Have I ever brought dishonour to the name of the newspaperman? If I have drunk, it has been out of the public sight.
“I have fought hard, Charley; fought hard to break the habit. It belongs to a past day in our game. And irrespective of that I may wish to be remembered around here some day as something other than drunken Jack Lanagan. I can’t help it if I have a knack of landing stories. I’ve got to play the game right with my paper, haven’t I? And here in this reporters’ room of all places I thought for a little lift and a hand along and you are trying to shove me down.”
His voice hardened in bitterness:
“I’ve played a lone hand all my life, though, Charley; it seems to be in the cards that I keep it up.”
My eyes blurred because I alone knew how hard he had fought that battle. Beneath his cynical exterior he had a soul as sensitive to slights as a girl. Boyishly I made a lunge at Bradley, but Lanagan, with a swift move, had my arm in that lean, powerful hand of his.
“It don’t go,” he said, softly. “We are full grown men.”
There was an awkward pause. Then Merriman, of few words, said sententiously:
“It’s your move, Charley.”
And Bradley put out his hand, which Lanagan took.