"Friend? (hic) haven't got any friend," replied the man; and he struck up the verse that had just been rendered. His voice was husky at first, but after a few notes it clarified itself, as brooks do in running. His tones became marvelously sweet, touching the highest note without the slightest suggestion of falsetto. It was a transcendent voice, one that might have once belonged to some spirit, and gone astray among men. The singer went through the verse this time without hiccup or slur; but the instant he stopped the drunk resumed its sway. Down came the chair with a bump on to its front legs, which sent the man headlong into the arms of Vox, with whom he wanted to fight.
"I won't fight you," said Vox, helping him back to his seat; "but I'll dare you to sing with me."
"Sin' wi' you! 'Cept your challenge. I can whip you with my—my tongue (hic) as bad as my wife she (hic) whipped me with her (hic) tongue."
"What shall we sing, old boy?" inquired Vox, with that easy familiarity which showed that he had seen such customers before.
"Sin' a song o' sispence,
Pocket full o' rye,"
sang the man. "Say, what's the use o' havin' your pocket full o' rye (hic)? 'D rather have a belly full o' rye; wouldn't you (hic)?"
"You've enough rye in you for to-night," said Vox. "Come, pull the cork out of your throat, and let's have a song."
Vox got a chair, and tipped it back by the side of the maudlin fellow, then struck up Mazzini's two-part song, "The Muleteers." The stranger joined in. Such singing was never heard before nor since in Brady's Harbor, nor, for that matter, in Carnegie Hall. After a bar or two the men rose to their feet and stood with arms interlocked and heads touching as their voices soared in the grand finale.
The noise brought in Brady, who said it was "galoreous," but for all that they'd have to "bolt up their chins," as it was past twelve o'clock, and the "perlice wasn't so easy on lodgin'-houses as they was on the swill-shops."
"See here, Vox," said the doctor, "I am going home alone to-night. Find out your pal. Chum him a bit. A man with that voice has had culture. Scrape the rust off him, and you will find something polished beneath, or I am no judge of human nature. Take him for your parish, Phil."