CHAPTER XIV
Mr. Red treated Dr. O’Grady and Patsy Devlin very well. They could not have fared better if they had been political prisoners awaiting a trial for inciting people to boycott each other. They had abundance of excellent food, three meals a day, brought up to them by one of the foreign anarchists. They had a sufficiency of whisky and tobacco. A second bed was supplied when the doctor objected to sleeping with Patsy Devlin. Twice every day Dr. O’Grady was taken downstairs and allowed to attend the injured man, who was recovering rapidly. Every evening Mr. Red, adhering honourably to his bargain, handed over five sovereigns to the doctor. A large number of books was supplied to the prisoners. They were chiefly treatises on the theory and practice of anarchism, accounts of the revolution in Russia, and kindred matters. Dr. O’Grady was perfectly content with them. The subject was new to him, and he read with excited curiosity. It was a favourite boast of his that no book of any kind bored him, provided he understood the language in which it was written. Unfortunately, Patsy Devlin did not like reading. He worked slowly through the accounts of the murders of a few Grand Dukes, and displayed some slight interest in the tortures inflicted on a female anarchist. Then he became bored and refused to read any more. He used to walk about the room whistling loudly. There were only two tunes which he cared to whistle—“The wearing of the Green” and “God save Ireland.” The constant repetition of them began to irritate Dr. O’Grady at the end of the second day of Patsy’s captivity. He expostulated, and Patsy agreed to stop whistling. He was a man of kindly heart and had a real affection for the doctor.
“I wouldn’t,” he said, “be doing what might annoy you; and if so be that the tunes is disagreeable, there won’t be another note of them heard from this out.”
He meant what he said, but he promised more than he was able to perform. It soon appeared that he could not help whistling. He did not, in fact, know when he was whistling. The tunes came bubbling from his pursed lips against his will.
Dr. O’Grady recognized that Patsy could not accomplish the impossible. He gave up reading about anarchists, and asked Mr. Red for a pack of cards. The request, a reasonable one, was refused, and Dr. O’Grady snubbed for making it. Mr. Red disapproved of card-playing on principle. He said that games of chance were demoralizing to the human race. As a consistent anarchist he could not and would not allow them to be played in his house. Then Dr. O’Grady invented a game which could be played with coins on a table. A penny was placed at a short distance from the edge of the table and driven along by the impact of another penny flipped at it from the edge. The object was to hit the first penny as frequently as possible before it was driven over the opposite edge of the table. Patsy displayed a great aptitude for the game. After an hour’s play he was fairly expert. Before the end of the afternoon he had won ninepence from Dr. O’Grady. He practised assiduously next morning while the doctor read anarchist books. During the afternoon and evening he won, to his great delight, sums which amounted altogether to one-and-sevenpence. He did not whistle while he practised or played. In order to concentrate his whole energy on the game he was obliged to keep his mouth wide open.
A game was in full swing on the third afternoon of Patsy’s captivity when the key turned in the lock and the door of the room was flung open.
“Now what,” said Dr. O’Grady, “can the Emperor possibly want with us at this hour of the day? It’s not tea-time.”
Mr. Dick, clad only in his grey flannel shirt, walked in.
“Hallo!” said Dr. O’Grady, “are you an anti-military anarchist getting into training for the simple life? Or are you a new recruit undergoing the ceremony of initiation into the brotherhood? Or is it nothing but the heat of the day?”
Mr. Red and the bearded anarchist dragged Mr. Sanders into the room and deposited him, still bound, on the floor.