“Yes, sir, he’s a great old coot—he ain’t a clam like some of these docs. Why, say, one day he showed up at the St. Patrick picnic, even if he is a dirty Protestant, and him and Father Costello chummed up like two old cronies, and darn’ if he didn’t wrestle a fellow half his age, and awful’ near throw him, yes, you bet he did, he certainly give that young fellow a run for his money all right! We fellows on the Force all like him, and we have to grin, the way he comes around and soft-soaps us into doing a lot of health work that by law we ain’t hardly supposed to do, you might say, instead of issuing a lot of fool orders. You bet. He’s a real guy.”
“I see,” said Martin, and as he returned to the hotel he meditated:
“But think of what Gottlieb would say about him.
“Damn Gottlieb! Damn everybody except Leora!
“I’m not going to fail here, way I did in Wheatsylvania.
“Some day Pickerbaugh will get a bigger job— Huh! He’s just the kind of jollying fourflusher that would climb! But anyway, I’ll have my training then, and maybe I’ll make a real health department here.
“Orchid said we’d go skating this winter—