Joe spoke to one of the lodgers, a hairy and deformed fellow who was just emerging in all his nakedness from the blankets.
"Hellish sour, Moleskin!" answered the man. "Anything to spare?"
"Take this and get drunk out of sight," said Moleskin, handing him the bottle.
"You mean it?" exclaimed the man. "You are goin' to give me the whole bottle?"
"Take it and get out of my sight," was all that Joe said and the old man left the room, hugging the bottle under his naked arm.
"He was a bank clerk did you say?" asked Moleskin. "Them sort of fellows that wear white collars and are always washing themselves. I never could trust them, Flynn, never in all my natural. Now give me the farmer cully's address; maybe he knows where your wench is."
In my heart of hearts I knew that the mission proposed by Joe would have no beneficial results, but I could not for the life of me say a word to restrain him from going. In my mind there was a blind trust in some unshapen chance and I allowed Joe to have his way.
The farmhouse where Alec Morrison lived being twenty miles distant from Glasgow, I offered Joe his railway fare, and for a moment I was overwhelmed by his Rabelaisian abuse. He would see me fried on the red-hot ovens and spits of hell if ever I offered him money again.
Morrison maybe was not at home; perhaps he had gone to London, to Canada. But Joe would find him out, I thought; and it was with a certain amount of satisfaction that I remembered having heard how Joe once fought a man twenty-six times, and getting knocked out every time challenged his opponent to a twenty-seventh contest. In the last fight my mate was victorious.
During his absence I moped about, unable to work, unable to think, and hoping against hope that the mission would be successful. Late in the afternoon he returned with a sprained thumb and without any tidings of my sweetheart. The clerk was at home, and the encounter with Joe was violent from the outset. Morrison said that my mate was a fool who had nothing better to do than meddle with the morals of young women; and refused to answer any questions. Joe took the matter in hand in his usual fistic and persuasive way and learned that the farmer's son had not seen Norah for years and that he did not know where she was. Joe, angry at his failure, sprained his thumb on the young man's face before coming back to Glasgow.