“Sure!” I returned, and I tossed Strong-Arm Dan a gold piece as I passed the bar. “Give'em what they want while it lasts,” said I. That demand for gin mashed into the teeth of my thoughts like the cogs of a wheel. It would hold that precious coterie for twenty minutes. When I got into the street, I caught the shadow of Sheeny Joe as he twisted around the corner. It was a half-dozen blocks from the Tub of Blood that I blew the gathering call of the Tin Whistles. They came running like hounds to huntsman. Ten minutes later the Tub of Blood lay a pile of ruins, while Strong-Arm Dan and those others, surprised in the midst of that guzzling I had paid for, with heads and faces a hash of wounds and blood and the fear of death upon them, were running or staggering or crawling for shelter, according to what strength remained with them. “It's plain,” said Big Kennedy, when I told of the net that Sheeny Joe had spread for me, “it's plain that you haven't shed your milk-teeth yet. However, you'll be older by an' by, an' then you won't follow off every band of music that comes playin' down the street. No, I don't blame Sheeny Joe; politics is like draw-poker, an' everybody's got a right to fill his hand if he can. Still, while I don't blame him, it's up to us to get hunk an' even on th' play.” Here Big Kennedy pondered for the space of a minute. Then he continued: “I think we'd better make it up-the-river--better railroad the duffer. Discipline's been gettin' slack of late, an' an example will work in hot an' handy. The next crook won't pass us out the double-cross when he sees what comes off in th' case of Sheeny Joe.” CHAPTER VIII--THE FATE OF SHEENY JOE BIG KENNEDY'S suggestion of Sing Sing for Sheeny Joe did not fit with my fancy. Not that a cropped head and a suit of stripes would have been misplaced in the instance of Sheeny Joe, but I had my reputation to consider. It would never do for a first bruiser of his day to fall back on the law for protection. Such coward courses would shake my standing beyond recovery. It would have disgraced the Tin Whistles; thereafter, in that vigorous brotherhood, my commands would have earned naught save laughter. To arrest Sheeny Joe would be to fly in the face of the Tin Whistles and their dearest ethics. When to this I called Big Kennedy's attention, he laughed as one amused. “You don't twig!” said he, recovering a partial gravity. “I'm goin' to send him over th' road for robbery.” “But he hasn't robbed anybody!” Big Kennedy made a gesture of impatience, mixed with despair. “Here!” said he at last, “I'll give you a flash of what I'm out to do an' why I'm out to do it. I'm goin' to put Sheeny Joe away to stiffen discipline. He's sold himself, an' th' whole ward knows it. Now I'm goin' to show'em what happens to a turncoat, as a hunch to keep their coats on right side out, d'ye see.” “But you spoke of a robbery!” I interjected; “Sheeny Joe has robbed no one.”