“Well, Newt, how air ye?”
Abel Newt was confounded at being accosted in such a place at such an hour. He raised his heavy eyes as he leaned unsteadily against the counter, and saw two beetle-browed, square-faced, disagreeable-looking men looking at him with half-drunken, sullen insolence.
“Hallo, Newt! how air ye?” repeated Jim, as he confronted the representative.
Abel looked at him with shaking head, indignant and scornful.
“Who the devil are you?” he asked, at length, blurring the words as he spoke, and endeavoring to express supreme contempt.
“We’re the men that made yer!” retorted Dick, in a shrill, tipsy voice.
The liquor-seller, who was leaning upon his counter, was instantly alarmed. He knew the signs of impending danger. He hurried round, and said,
“Come, come; I’m going to shut up! Time to go home; time to go home!”
The three men at the counter did not move. As they stood facing each other the brute fury kindled more and more fiercely in each one of them.
“We’re Jim and Dick, and Ned’s asleep yonder on the bench; and we’re come to drink a glass with yer, Honorable Abel Newt!” said Dick, in a sneering tone. “It’s we what did your business for ye. What yer going to do for us?”