What more could an Irishman ask; and a Connemara Irishman at that? His face was growing redder and more smiling every minute, and his feet, although they performed their duties after a fashion, would certainly not have been equal to the "crack in the floor test," as on the night when he encountered the "ghostly hurdler."
But although Pat would have been contented to continue in the same blissful state until the crack of doom, the rest of us began to tire of the quest, and to look around in search of other things beside "Dinny, the copper." The streets were crowded, the stores open, the bar-rooms doing a rushing business, and the places of amusement in full blast.
Suddenly Jim stopped before the bulletin board of a little variety theatre, and began to examine it critically. There was a long list of names in black letters,—singers, dancers, acrobats, boxers, and I know not what else; but Jim's eyes were fixed with great seriousness at the tall red letters at the bottom. They declared, in extremely mixed metaphor, "A Galaxy of Stars, and Every One a Winner."
"I'm going in," said Jim, with much gravity, throwing his cigar away.
"How about Paddy's cousin, the copper?" asked Harry.
"He's as likely here as anywhere," Jim answered; "beside, it says that 'every one's a winner,' and that's the only kind for us to-night."
We were all of us quite ready for a change, so we stepped into the little lobby, Paddy first going up to the ticket office to ask, "Is me cousin, Dinny Sullivan, the copper, inside?"
The ticket-seller, a big, fat fellow, with weak eyes and a Roman nose, thought Paddy was trying to jolly him, and answered "No," quite tartly. Paddy, of course, resented the incivility, and declared himself to be a gentleman, and he cared not who knew it. He further ventured to doubt whether the man behind the window was in the same class with himself, and, gradually abandoning the reproachful accents with which he had begun, became first unparliamentary, and then abusive.
The ticket-seller stood it for a while, and then told Paddy to pass along, that "Dinny Sullivan" was not inside, but that they had two other policemen who were no relation of Pat's, but would take care of him just the same.