All the while McQuirk lead been carefully measuring and pouring together small quantities of various spirits, as Riley called them, from his latest pencilled prescription. The completed mixture was of a vile, mottled chocolate color. McQuirk tasted it, and hurled it, with appropriate epithets, into the waste sink.
«'Tis a strange story, even if true,» said Con. «I'll be going now along to my supper.»
«Take a drink,» said Riley. «We've all kinds except the lost blend.»
«I never drink,» said Con, «anything stronger than water. I am just after meeting Miss Katherine by the stairs. She said a true word. 'There's not anything,' says she, 'but is better off for a little water.'»
When Con had left them Riley almost felled McQuirk by a blow on the back.
«Did ye hear that?» he shouted. «Two fools are we. The six dozen bottles of 'pollinaris we had on the slip—ye opened them yourself—which barrel did ye pour them in—which barrel, ye mudhead?»
«I mind,» said McQuirk, slowly, «'twas in the second barrel we opened. I mind the blue piece of paper pasted on the side of it.»
«We've got it now,» cried Riley. «'Twas that we lacked. 'Tis the water that does the trick. Everything else we had right. Hurry, man, and get two bottles of 'pollinaris from the bar, while I figure out the proportionments with me pencil.»
An hour later Con strolled down the sidewalk toward Kenealy's café. Thus faithful employees haunt, during their recreation hours, the vicinity where they labor, drawn by some mysterious attraction.
A police patrol wagon stood at the side door. Three able cops were half carrying, half hustling Riley and McQuirk up its rear steps. The eyes and faces of each bore the bruises and cuts of sanguinary and assiduous conflict. Yet they whooped with strange joy, and directed upon the police the feeble remnants of their pugnacious madness.