“'Yes, yes!' says Jonadab. 'Course we be. Mr. Kelly and us are old friends. We've come I don't know how fur on purpose to see him. Now where's—'
“'Say no more,' hollers the feller. 'Say no more. Come on with yez.' And he marches down the dark hall to a door with a 'To let' sign on it and fetches it a bang with his fist. It opens a little ways and a face shows in the crack.
“'Hello, Frank!' hails the sunflower, cheerful. 'Will you take that ugly mug of yours out of the gate and lave me friends in?'
“'What's the matter wid you, Mike?' asks the chap at the door. 'Yer can't bring them two yaps in here and you know it. Gwan out of this.'
“He tried to shut the door, but the checkerboard had his foot between it and the jamb. You might as well have tried to shove in the broadside of an ocean liner as to push against that foot.
“'These gents are friends of mine,' says he. 'Frank, I'll do yez the honor of an introduction to Gin'ral Grant and Dan'l O'Connell. Open that door and compose your face before I'm obliged to break both of 'em.'
“'But I tell you, Mike, I can't,' says the door man, lookin' scared. 'The boss is out, and you know—'
“'WILL you open that door?' roars the big chap. And with that he hove his shoulder against the panels and jammed the door open by main force, all but flattenin' the other feller behind it. 'Walk in, Gin'ral,' he says to Jonadab, and in we went, me wonderin' what was comin' next, and not darin' to guess.
“There was a kind of partitioned off hallway inside, with another door in the partition. We opened that, and there was a good-sized room, filled with men, smokin' and standin' around. A high board fence was acrost one end of the room, and from behind it comes a jinglin' of telephone bells and the sounds of talk. The floor was covered with torn papers, the window blinds was shut, the gas was burnin' blue, and, between it and the smoke, the smells was as various as them in a fish glue factory. On the fence was a couple of blackboards with 'Belmont' and 'Brighton' and suchlike names in chalk wrote on 'em, and beneath that a whole mess in writin' and figures like, 'Red Tail 4—Wt—108—Jock Smith—5—1,' 'Sourcrout 5—Wt—99—Jock Jones—20—5,' and similar rubbish. And the gang—a mighty mixed lot—was scribblin' in little books and watchin' each other as if they was afraid of havin' their pockets picked; though, to look at 'em, you'd have guessed the biggest part had nothin' in their pockets but holes.
“The six-foot checkerboard—who, it turned out, answered to the hail of 'Mike'—seemed to be right at home with the gang. He called most of 'em by their first names and went sasshayin' around, weltin' 'em on the back and tellin' 'em how he'd 'put crimps in the bookies rolls t'other day,' and a lot more stuff that they seemed to understand, but was hog Greek to me and Jonadab. He'd forgot us altogether which was a mercy the way I looked at it, and I steered the Cap'n over into a corner and we come to anchor on a couple of rickety chairs.