“‘Forward, march!’
“And we marched. We stumbled some, an’ slipped—off the bodies on th’ floor. They was coming to, and moved; and some was getting up; enough to keep our sticks busy. But we marched, us three, like a battalion, to—under the hole.
“‘Up we go,’ he says to me, and with my good foot in his two hands, he shoots me up and out like a lady mounting a horse in th’ Park.
“‘Now, you,’ he says to th’ prisoner, and up th’ prisoner came to me.
“And then he turns, belts th’ two nearest heads two good last belts, and he bows. ‘Gentlemen,’ he says to th’ mob, ‘good-night.’
“He hands me his hand and comes out, closes th’ trap-door down careful and stands on th’ lid.
“‘Now, then,’ he says to me, ‘you take your baby to th’ station; send me th’ off-platoon, with th’ wagon; and—don’t hurry. I like it here. And that old oyster knife left rust in your left ankle. ’Tend to it.’”
The Chief lit the cigar he had been handling as a club. When it was burning perfectly, he said:
“Sweeney, I wish you wouldn’t ask me nothing about Mahoney. He’s a po-lice-man.”