“With me, in my former profession, it would have been criminal to touch the stuff. The worst crime a burglar can commit is to get drunk. No decent, bang-up burglar ever does it. I don't suppose there is a more self-respectin' sort of man in the world than a high-grade burglar. And it's the same with a preacher. He can't any more preach a good sermon when he is lit up than a burglar can crack a safe or jimmy a window if he tanks up beforehand. The parson seemed surprised when I put it right up to him like that. He said he'd never thought of it in that light before. Of course, says he, a minister of the gospel ain't even supposed to know what licker tastes like, and I says to him that's where we have the advantage of him. We know what it tastes like, and we like it, and we leave it alone because it cramps our style. He leaves it alone because it's the style for preachers to leave it alone, and because they'd go to hell if they drank like ordinary men. The only place a burglar goes to if he boozes is jail.
“Well, as I was sayin', this here Sancho wasn't soused when he committed that crime, and it all goes to prove that these temperance cranks are off their base. Most of the crime that's committed in this world is committed because the feller wants to commit it. When I was up in Sing Sing once,—sort of by accident, you might say,—there was a lot of talk about prison reform, and pattin' the crooks on the back, and tellin' them they could be just as good as anybody else if they had a chance. The only chance them guys want, and keep lookin' for night and day, is a chance to lift something when nobody's lookin'. That's all they're thinkin' about while they're in the pen, and God knows they're as sober as judges all the time they're there. Crime is crime and you can't always lay it to booze. It's human nature with some people. I'm not sayin' the world wouldn't be better off if there wasn't any licker to drink. It stands to reason that there wouldn't be half so much bunglin' if people kept sober, 'specially when it comes to crime. Now, if this guy Sancho had had a couple of pints in him, everybody would be going around preachin' about the horrible effects of booze, and—What say?”
“I said you make me tired,” said Buck Chizler, repeating his remark. “I never did anything wrong in my life except when I was half-soused.”
“Sure,” agreed Soapy. “But you'd have done it right if you'd been sober, my boy. That's the principal trouble with booze. It never gives a feeler a chance to do anything right.” Whereupon, with a slow wink for the other members of the group, he arose and passed out into the night.
“I can't make that feller out,” grumbled Buck, uncomfortably.
Easter Sunday was bright and clear, following a fortnight of cold, penetrating winds and rain. The sun smiled, but it was a cold smile that mocked rather than cheered. The sky was the colour of thin, transparent ice; the vast white dome was unspotted by a single cloud; the rose tints of early morn, frightened away at birth by the chill, unfeeling glare, took with them every promise of tenderness that dawned with the new day. But, though the sky was hard, the air was soft; the tang of the salt-sea spice lay over everything.
Percival had no active part in the exercises arranged by Ruth. The song service was held in the open. A platform had been erected in front of the “tabernacle” (the meeting-house on occasion) for the choir and musicians. There were no seats for the congregation. Every one stood, bareheaded, in a wide semi-circle facing the platform. The “boss” took his place inconspicuously among those who formed the outer fringe of the assemblage. His gaze seldom left the face of the girl he loved. Once her eyes met his. She was on the platform discussing arrangements with the two clergymen when her roving, unsettled gaze chanced to fall upon him. For many seconds she stared at him fixedly,—so fixedly, in fact, that Father Francisco, after a moment, shot a look in the same direction. Even from his far-off post, Percival saw the colour mount to her cheeks as she hastily turned away to resume the conversation that had been so incontinently broken off. She was bare-headed. He had been watching the sun at play among the coils of her soft, dark hair,—a glint here as of bronze, a gleam there as of gold, ever changing under the caresses of that flaming lover a hundred million miles away.
The affable Mr. Nicklestick was standing beside Percival, carrying on a more or less one-sided conversation.
“You see, it's this way,” he was saying, contriving to reduce his far-reaching voice to a moderate undertone; “I'm not in the habit of attending Easter services. I'm not opposed to them, believe me, A. A.,—not in the slightest. Now at home in New York, I make it a habit to walk from the Metropolitan Museum down to the Waldorf-Astoria regularly every Easter. Between eleven and twelve-thirty. You get them going into certain churches and you get them coming out of others, don't you see? Oh, vat would I give to be on Fif' Avenue at this minute, A. A.! A hundred thousand dollars,—gladly, villingly,—yes, two hundred thousand! I vonder vat things are like on Fif Avenue now,—at this minute, I mean. I vonder what the vimmin are wearing this season. My God, don't you vish you were on Fif Avenue, A. A.?”
“What?”