The man behind seemed interested.
"Supposing I put down fifty cents?" he said.
Mike looked at him witheringly.
"You'd have to spind the change on thim," he said.
"Oh!"
"But if ye want to see the whole thing for yoursilf, my device to you, me lad, is to plant down a dollar—if ye have it. If ye hadn't plenty of fighting friends with ye, ye might just as well hand it to them. If it's a rough house ye're wantin', we might all go in and oblige ye, but spakin' for mesilf, I'm wantin' a quiet drink."
"That's right," Michael commented quietly, with a nod to Scholar, by whose side he marched. "Partner of mine once went in there. I think meself that some fellow slipt up and drugged his beer, for when he comes near the tail of the glass he feels kind of funny, ye know, and he came outside. He was for walking out into the main streets, and then he thinks some bull would arrest him for drunk and incapable, for he could hardly stand; so he turns the other way and two fellows came up to him and began talking to him, and asks him what's the matter, and he tumbles to it and tries to walk back the other way again. One of them fellows comes the one side of him and the other the other side, and they says: 'You come along with us, where the bulls won't get you.' And while he's puzzling out which is better, the bulls or them, ye see—well, he doesn't know any more, ye see. And the next he does know, he's wondering where he is anyhow, for the things he's after seeing. It's the backs of the wharfs all upside down, ye see. He's lying there with nothing on him but his pants. The hat on his head, his shirt and his coat, with his discharge papers in it, they've skinned off him; and his boots; and him after having a dollar stowed away in each boot."
"Here you are, Scholar, then," said Mike, in advance, and swung into a saloon, a ramshackle sawdusted place, where, behind a short counter, a lean, sharp-faced man in shirt sleeves looked at them in a way reminiscent of a weasel. All entered with a swagger, each man with whatever change of face was his change of face before possible trouble. Mike jerked up his right shoulder, jerked up his left, hitched his belt, seemed to heave his chest up, and broaden his whole torso. Cockney curved his back, curved also his arms, making the swing of them, instead of by his side, left and right, in front of him, and thrust his face forward, craning his neck. Michael put one hand in his pocket, half-closed his eyes, and slowly, and without expression, his guarded gaze roved from occupant to occupant of the place. The man with the dangerously mad eyes, who it appeared was called Harry, but was referred to simply as Queer, merely sneered slightly, an unpleasant sneer, a one-sided sneer that showed a tooth. The Inquisitive One danced into the place; his name had not yet transpired, but it seemed to be "him," with an indicatory jerk of the thumb, at which he did not take open umbrage, only now and then giving his roving glance from foot to head of whoever thus referred to him. But if he danced in gaily he was none the less alert.
Somebody spoke, and Mike interrupted with: "Where's your manners? Can't you let the man that's going to stand treat ask you what you're going to be after having, without shouting your order like that?" And they lined up against the bar, on which the barman put the palms of his hands, standing before them.
"Well, what will you have, Mike?" asked Scholar. It was the first time he had given him his name, and Mike acknowledged it with a nod. He turned to the bar-keeper.