“An’ if I did it wouldn’t be in answer to the hogwash preachin’ you ladle out. Anyways I’ll give as it pleases me.”
“Then I guess them kiddies’ll starve, sure,” remarked Wilkes heavily.
How much further the ruffled tempers of these men might have been tried it is impossible to say, but at that moment a diversion was created by the advent of the redoubtable doctor. And it was easy to see at a glance how it was this man was able to sway the Barnriff crowd. He was an aggressive specimen of unyielding force, lean, but powerful of frame, with the light of overwhelming determination in a pair of swift, bright eyes.
He glanced round the vast dingy bar-room. There were two tables of poker going in opposite corners of the room, and a joyous collection of variegated uncleanness “bucking” a bank in another corner. Then there was the flower of Barnriff propping up the bar like a row of daisies in a window box––only they lacked the purity of that simple flower. He stepped at once to the centre of the room.
“Boys,” he said in a hoarse, rasping voice, “I’m in a hurry. Guess natur’ don’t wait fer nuthin’ when she gits busy on matters wot interest her; an’ seein’ Barnriff 93 needs all the population that’s comin’ to it with so energetic a funeral maker as our friend, Angel Gay, around, I’ll git goin’. I’m right here fer dollars fer pore Sally Morby. She’s broke, dead broke, an’ she’s got six kiddies, all with their pore little bellies flappin’ in the wind for want of a squar’ feed. Say, I ain’t hyar to git gassin’, I ain’t hyar to make flowery talk fer the sake o’ them pore kiddies. I’m here to git dollars, an’ I’m goin’ to git ’em. Cents won’t do. Come on. Ther’s six pore kiddles, six pore lone little kiddies with their faces gapin’ fer food like a nest o’ unfledged chicks in the early frosts o’ spring. Now every mother’s son o’ you ‘ante’ right here. Natur’ busy or no natur’ busy, I don’t quit till you’ve dipped into your wads. Now you, Smallbones,” he cried, fixing the little man with his desperate eyes. “How much?”
Every eye was on the trust manipulator. He hated it. He hated them all, but Doc Crombie most of all. But the tall, lean man was impatient. He knew it was a race between him and a baby in a distant quarter of the village.
“How much?” he threatened the hesitating man.
“A dollar,” Smallbones muttered in the midst of profound silence. Even the chips of the poker players had ceased to rattle.
A faint light of amusement crept into every eye, every eye except the doctor’s.
Suddenly his lean figure pounced forward and stood before the beflustered speaker.