"'Gintlemen,' he says, 'ye must excuse me,' he says, 'in such
matthers.' 'D'ye mane to say,' says Cassidy, th' plumber, 'that ye
won't do annything f'r my son?' 'Do annything,' says Flannagan. (I'll
say this f'r him: a more darin' man niver drew breath; an', whin his
time come to go sthandin' off th' mob an' defindin' his sthone quarry
in th' rites iv sivinty-sivin, he faced death without a wink.) 'Do?'
he says, risin' an' sthandin' within a fut iv Cassidy's big cane.
'Do?' he says. 'Why,' he says, 'yes,' he says; 'I've subscribed wan
thousand dollars,' he says, 'to th' citizen's comity,' he says, 'f'r
to prosecute him; an',' he says, 'gintlemen,' he says, 'there's th'
dure.'
"I seen Cassidy that night, an' he was as white as a ghost. 'What ails
ye?' says I. 'Have ye seen th' divvle?' 'Yes,' he says, bendin' his
head over th' bar, an' lookin' sivinty years instead iv forty-five."
A WINTER NIGHT.
Any of the Archey Road cars that got out of the barns at all were
pulled by teams of four horses, and the snow hung over the shoulders
of the drivers' big bearskin coats like the eaves of an old-fashioned
house on the blizzard night. There was hardly a soul in the road from
the red bridge, west, when Mr. McKenna got laboriously off the
platform of his car and made for the sign of somebody's celebrated
Milwaukee beer over Mr. Dooley's tavern. Mr. Dooley, being a man of
sentiment, arranges his drinks to conform with the weather. Now
anybody who knows anything at all knows that a drop of "J.J." and a
whisper (subdued) of hot water and a lump of sugar and lemon peel (if
you care for lemon peel) and nutmeg (if you are a "jood ") is a drink
calculated to tune a man's heart to the song of the wind slapping a
beer-sign upside down and the snow drifting in under the door. Mr.
Dooley was drinking this mixture behind his big stove when Mr. McKenna
came in.
"Bad night, Jawn," said Mr. Dooley.
"It is that," said Mr. McKenna.
"Blowin' an' storming', yes," said Mr. Dooley. "There hasn' been a can
in tonight but wan, an' that was a pop bottle. Is the snow-ploughs
out, I dinnaw?"
"They are," said Mr. McKenna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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