"All right. Now I know you ain't no nut. Which means that you get yours, whatever you call it. And now will you talk business?"
"What business do you want to talk, Duck?" I added; "I should say that you already have your hands rather full of business and Lebel rifles——"
"Aw' Gawd; this? This ain't business. I was a damn fool and I'm doin' time like any souse what the bulls pinch. Only I get more than thirty days, I do. That's what's killin' me,[pg 144] Doc!—Duck Werner in a tin lid, suckin' soup an' shootin' Fritzies when I oughter be in Noo York with me fren's lookin' after business. Can you beat it?" he ended fiercely.
He chewed hard on his quid for a few moments, staring blankly into space with the detached ferocity of a caged tiger.
"What are they a-doin' over there in the 50th?" he demanded. "How do I know whose knifin' me with the boys? I don't mean your party. You're here same as I am. I mean Mike the Kike, and the regular Reepublican nomination, I do.... And, how do I know when you are going back?"
I was silent.
"Are you?"
"Perhaps."
"Doc, will you talk business, man to man?"
"Duck, to tell you the truth, the hell that is in full blast over here—this gigantic, world-wide battle of nations—leaves me, for the time, uninterested in ward politics."