A pair of tens, back to back, he played cunningly, letting his opponent do the betting until the last card was dealt, when Gallagher bet a dollar on two eights in sight. Then he raised it three dollars, and, as this looked like a bluff, Gallagher called. A similar play when he really held a straight with the middle card buried, against two pairs, netted him as much more, and the lucky chance of a third ace for the last card against three queens in sight enabled him to raise back to the extent of Gallagher’s pile after he had passed the bet and Gallagher had shown his confidence in his queens. He had won the freeze-out and was calmly tolerant when Gallagher said, with something of a sneer: “Yez can all see now what I said. Whin Mr. Hennessy has the cyards he can play as well as the next.” “Oi can,” he replied, loftily. “An’ Oi can do betther nor that.” “An’ how?” demanded Gallagher. “Oi can lick the shtuffin’ out of anny man that can’t lick the shtuffin’ out o’ me.” “An’ is it me ye mane?” asked Gallagher, almost choking. “It is.” “It is foight ye mane?” “It is.” “Av ye’ll shtep outside,” said Gallagher, “Oi’ll shtand ye on yer head, an’ dhrive yer body so far down in the mud they’ll be usin’ ye for an artooshun well.” “Ye may, thin,” said Hennessy, and two minutes later they were out on the levee, with their coats off, locked in a grip that seemed unbreakable. “What did Oi say till ye the marnin’,” said Stumpy, as he and Sam stood watching the proceedings in keenest delight, together with nearly the entire male population of Brownsville. “There do be things happens here sometimes.” The excitement was so great, in fact, that for the moment no one noticed a bareheaded woman that came running up the street, almost breathless, but shouting as loudly as she could. When her voice reached the crowd, they perceived that it was the voice of Mrs. Hennessy, and there was an imperative tone in it that arrested even the attention of the two who were fighting. “Mike!” she screamed, “Mike! darlint. The babby fell down in the cistern, an’ Missus Gallagher climbed down wid a rope, an’ we pulled the babby up, an’ she’s shtuck at the bottom. Sure ye’ll coom an’ pull her up. Hurry, for the love o’ God.” They did hurry, all of them, and when Mrs. Gallagher was rescued, as she speedily was, Hennessy turned to his foe: “Oi’ll not foight you this day, Gallagher, but you’ll dhrink wid me for the babby your good woman saved. An’ so,” he added, “will the whole o’ Brownsville this day.” But while they drank, Stumpy remarked: “Sure it’s almost a pity they couldn’t ha’ finished the shindy. It would ha’ been worth seein’.” IX A SOCIAL CALL “Hurroo!” exclaimed Long Mike, and fired a shot through the ceiling.