The well-groomed barkeep and owner swept it off into his resplendent cash-register and began the swift passing out of the accustomed drinks. Blynn’s second ginger ale was slid beside him before he could guess the meaning of the action.
And so treating went the rounds. Here and there pay-envelopes were opened and tossed on the counter with bravado. To Blynn’s amazement the alert barkeep boldly kept the change of those who were too far gone to protest. When “Evil” called blasphemously for his money the barkeep roared with delight and spun the coins out from behind a concealed glass.
“Thought I’d got you that time, Pete!” he shouted gayly.
No one seemed to notice that Blynn’s pile of ginger ale was untouched. He had resolved not to be a party to the disgusting custom. So he was about to pay his little bill and depart, when an almost inarticulate soliloquy from “Evil,” the least sodden of the lot, stopped him short and sent his head aflaming.
“Wife’s sick ’gin, dam ’er. Tol’ ’er, break ’er head. Will break ’er head w’enna g’ home. Las’ night—las’ night—’noth’ dam brat.... Allus havin’ dam brats.... Locked ’er up; ’did. Tol’ ’er, break ’er head. Will break ’er head w’enna g’ home.”
He went on with this maudlin talk, to which no one attended. Ordinarily, Allen Blynn looked on the miseries of the poor with a mild professorial eye. The world is a horrible place for some folks, “a darkling plain where ignorant armies clash by night”; no remedy is nigh; we must sigh in pity and pass on to our own compelling tasks.
But this fellow’s story, which he enlarged upon until there was no doubt of his meaning, Blynn viewed in no spirit of philosophic calm. Perhaps the alcoholic air of the place had got into his vitals, and had stirred them; perhaps that hidden, scourging priest within him had broken forth to battle with the evil one; perhaps the Lady had made him realize that he lacked something of being a man: at any rate, he strode up back of that villainous beer-sop and spun him about so that his back leaned at an angle against the bar and his feet spread out in front of him.
“Where do you live?” Blynn darted the question at him so fiercely that he answered automatically.
“Twenty-six Hogan street,” he growled, then slid heavily and sat down in the gutter before the bar. From this posture he hurled weak curses.
The barkeep leaped adroitly across the bar, shoved Blynn aside with, “Here you! Get out o’ this. Tryin’ to start somethin’?” while he jerked his customer to normal human posture.