"Thank ye kindly, sir; but if ye don't mind, sir, I think I'd rather let someone get it as nades it more. Ye see, Mr. O'Malley, sir, this here Mrs. Légère has been powerful kind to me, an'——"
"All right, have it your own way."
"I—I can't do nothin' for her, Mr. O'Malley?"
"Not this time. That's all, Riley.—And, Riley——"
The thin boss stood up and crossed to the bulky policeman. His voice was still low and soft.
"Yis, Mr. O'Malley?"
"If that woman gets wind of this an' makes a getaway, I'll have your uniform off you so God damned quick you'll wish I'd skinned you alive."
"Yis, Mr. O'Malley, sir," said the officer. "No fear of that, sir."
But he left the audience-chamber with a heavy heart. He lived the life that he was compelled to live, and he did what he was ordered to do, but he could not without compunction turn upon one that had bought a right to his own and his superior's protection.
There was not a little silent bitterness in his heart as, later, returning to the station-house, he thought upon these things. He remembered the days when he had been new upon the force. Those were the days when the popular tide had turned against gambling and, amid the raids that meant the breaking of steel doors, the pursuit of offenders through secret passages and across steep roofs, it was for a while possible for a policeman to retain his ideals. But he remembered also how, when the ruling powers had thus been forced to destroy the nests where once they had gathered golden eggs, the long arm of necessity swung slowly backward until it paused at the point where it had since remained and, because the eggs must be gathered somewhere, the police were expected to gather them from the aeries of the vultures that preyed upon women.