“’Tis little enough, but ’twill do.”
He took a pencil from the desk and with much effort wrote a few lines on a bit of wrapping paper. Straightening, he fixed a steady gaze on the old face turned, not unkindly, to his.
“We have known aiche ither more’n a bit. Ye know I’m not th’ drunkard nor th’ loafer. I know ye aire a har-r-d man—ye have to be in this trade, har-r-d but square. I am off for good and all; ’tis for the sake of the gyrul and the little man. She’ll not go home till I lave her. Sind th’ money and the line to the place it spells; ’twill pay her way home—they’ll take her, without me; they have said it. Will ye do it?”
The old man looked away from him and was silent.
“Yes!” he said, at length.
They waited and then shook hands, for no reason, after the fashion of men.
“What have you been doing of late?” a voice broke in that was clear-cut, sharp, and almost offensively authoritative. It came from a third man standing near, unnoticed. The coatless stranger regarded him steadily, his face hardening. He saw a short, rotund figure, almost swallowed up in a fur coat now thrown open, a heavy chain across the prominent paunch, an enormous diamond above, a prominent curved nose and sweeping black moustache. An elbow on the counter supported a jewelled hand that poised a fat black cigar with an ash half an inch long.
The eyes of the two men met, Celt and Hebrew. A moment of strained silence and something passed. What? Eternity’s messages travel many channels. The Irishman’s resentment faded; his lips framed a slow, sardonic grin.
“Me? Sure, I been searchin’ for the Christ! Do ye mind that ye saw Him along the way ye came?”
“No,” said the other simply. “He does not live in New York! You spoke of going for good. Where—without a coat—by the bridge route?”