It was not very long before the stories of my travels had been told and told again, until every one of the habitués of the Brodian emporium was surfeited with them. This largely curtailed the number of drinks bought for me by admiring listeners, and I was sorely puzzled how to fill this aching void. I was not yet fully able to "hustle" very much, and still stuck to the sheltering shadow of Steve Brodie's back room.
It was the veriest chance that put me in the way of a new "graft" and again brought me the surety of food and drink. I became a splendid exemplification of the saying that life is but a stage and we players of many parts.
The scheme developed finally owing to prevalent hero-worship. Take the greatest celebrity of the day, push him into a crowd which is not aware of his identity, and he will pass unnoticed. But only properly label him and the multitude will kneel before the erstwhile nonentity.
Now, while we always have the inclination for hero-worship, heroes are rather scarce and not always handy for the occasion. This is especially the case on the Bowery, where quantities of heroes are always supposed to be waiting around, "but ain't." Their supposed presence draws the usual attendance of worshippers, and it was solely for the purpose of not wishing to disappoint these worthy people that Steve Brodie, with my co-operation, decided upon a plan, which proved satisfactory from the start, and was the means of conveying many pleasant recollections into the houses of many uptown people and into the rural homes of our land.
The plan itself was very simple, and was originated by John Mulvihill, at the time the dispenser of liquids of the Brodie establishment.
The Horton Boxing Law had not yet been thought of, and the fistic cult had more followers than ever before. A few of the lesser lights of pugilism had their permanent headquarters at Brodie's, while some aspirants for champion honors and even real champions dropped in whenever happening to be in the neighborhood.
Brodie's well engineered fame and the many odd decorations and pictures in the place did not fail to draw the many, and they, after inspecting Brodie and the other oddities, invariably inquired if "some prominent fighters" were not present. As a rule, Johnnie Mulvihill was able to produce some celebrity to satisfy this craving of the curious, but there were times when the stock of stars was very low; then the mentioned plan was resorted to. It was the inspiration born of emergency.
On a certain evening I happened to be quietly sitting in the desolated back-room. Business was dreadfully slow. My quiet was suddenly disturbed by Mulvihill, who came tearing through the swinging doors.
"Say, Kil, you got to do me a favor. Steve is out, and there ain't a single solitary man in the place whom I can introduce to the bunch I got up against the bar. They just came in and are fine spenders, but I'll lose them if you don't do this for me."
Mulvihill's request was not fully understood by me, yet, owing him many debts of gratitude for having given me a drink on the sly and for having often shared his corned beef and cabbage with me, I was quite willing to do him the favor desired, which, I thought, would be nothing else than to "jolly" the men at the bar into the buying of more drinks.