"Aw, as if I had to tell you. I got some sense left."
Suddenly his sallow visage under the iron helmet became distorted with helpless fury; he fairly snarled; his thin lips writhed as he spat out the suspicion which had seized him:
"By God, Doc, if you do that!—if you leave me here caged up an' go home an' raise hell in the 50th—with me an' Joe here——"
After a breathless pause: "Well," said I, "what will you do about it?"—for he was looking murder at me.
Neither of us spoke again for a few moments; an officer, smoking a cigarette, came up between Heinie and Pick-em-up Joe, adjusted a periscope and set his eye to it. Through the sky above us the shells raced as though hundreds of shaky express trains were rushing overhead on rickety aërial tracks, deafening the world with their outrageous clatter.
"Listen, Doc——"
I looked up into his altered face—a sallow, earnest face, fiercely intent. Every atom of the man's intelligence was alert, concentrated on me, on my expression, on my slightest movement.
"Doc," he said, "let's talk business. We're men, we are, you an' me. I've fought you plenty times. I know. An' I guess you are on to me, too. I ain't no squealer; you know that anyway. Perhaps I'm everything else[pg 142] you claim I am when you make parlor speeches to Gussie an' Reggie an' when you stand on a bar'l in Avenoo A an' say: 'my friends' to Billy an' Izzy an' Pete the Wop.
"All right. Go to it! I'm it. I got mine. That's what I'm there for. But—when I get mine, the guys that back me get theirs, too. My God, Doc, let's talk business! What's a little graft between friends?"
"Duck," I said, "you own the 50th Ward. You are no fool. Why is it not possible for you to understand that some men don't graft?"