On the following day he chanced again upon Richardson, who, to Broderick's astonishment, still brooded over Cora's "impudent remark." He did not seem to know just what it was, but the offensive flavor of it lingered.
"Wonder where he is?" he kept repeating. "Deserves to be thrashed. Confound his impertinence. May do it yet."
He was drinking. Broderick glanced apprehensively about. The gambler's sleek form was not in evidence. McGowan came in with Casey and Mulligan. Casey, too, had been drinking. He was in an evil humor, his usually jovial face sullen and vengeful.
"Damn the newspapers," he exploded. "They've printed the Sing Sing yarn on me again. It was brought out at the arraignment."
"Confound it, Broderick, haven't you any influence at all? Can't you keep such stuff out of type?"
"Sometimes--if I know about it in advance. I'm sorry, Jim."
"They tell me King of William's going to print it in the Bulletin. Better see him."
"No use," put in McGowan, "that fellow's so straight (he sneered the word) that he leans over backward. Somebody'll fix him though ... you'll see." The trio wandered off to Broderick's relief, making their exit just as Cora entered the door. The gambler approached Richardson. They had a drink together, some rather loud, conversation. Broderick feared it would develop into a quarrel, but evidently they patched a truce between them, for soon they went out arm in arm.
His thought turned to Alice Windham. In a kind of reverie he left the Blue Wing, walking without sense of direction. It was getting dark; a chilling touch of fog was in the air--almost, it seemed to Broderick, like a premonition. On Clay, near Montgomery, he passed two men standing in a doorway; it was too dark to see their faces. Some impulse bade him stop, but he repressed it. Later he heard a shot, men running. But his mood was not for street brawls. He went on.