"They shouldn't have called the game for a few drops of water," complained the saturated weigher. "But let us go some place and get a drink."
Whereupon the two dripping fans found their way to a nearby barroom and talked of club standings and batting averages while they warmed up with copious drafts of red-eyed liquor.
"Boy," said the weigher, after the fourth drink, "have you got a family?"
"No," answered Gard. "I am not married."
"Go get married," urged the older man. "When you begin to get old and have only a solitary room to which to go and no children nor grandchildren to give you an interest in the world, there is nothing to live for. You perform your small duties with a great void in the back of your mind. There is no stage setting that makes the petty play seem worth while. The only relief is an occasional Saturday night when you forget."
The special agent began to realize that the weigher was starting on his tri-weekly fling. It also began to be evident that he was of the order of inebriates who indulge in a debauch of self-pity as an accompaniment to their liquor.
"It always seemed to me," said the special agent, "that a man could become so absorbed in his work that it would fill his whole life. Particularly should this be true when he has a task so important as yours."
"Mother of Mary!" exclaimed the Irishman. "Become absorbed in watching a bunch of thieves always at work? Would you like to spend your declining years in sitting idly by and watching your employer and benefactor robbed?"
"Why do this?" said Gard. "Why not lay the whole thing before the right authority and do a worth-while piece of work in cleaning up the service?"
"Yes, and be broken and thrown into the discard to starve," was the reply. "I have seen too many of them go up against the gang. None of it for O'Toole.