Larry took some half dozen steps out upon the floor; then he paused, rapped sharply with his heel, and drew himself up with a dignity that Professor Whalen could not have excelled. All eyes were upon him; he extended both arms, palms held downward, waving them up and down. Silence fell. The palms came together with a sharp report; Levi described a wild flourish with his bow; the cornet blared brassily; McGonagle and Annie Clancy stepped out upon the floor to lead the march. The ball was on. At midnight the affair was in full blast; quadrille, schottische and waltz succeeded each other with hardly a pause, the dancers whirled, stamped and pirouetted with exhaustless energy; the musicians blew and scraped, the perspiration dropping from their faces. A sergeant of police, on his round of inspection, had just dropped in; he stood in the doorway leading to the staircase looking wet and chilled, for it had begun to rain, and talked to the men on duty in the hall. “Anything doing?” asked he, shaking the drops of water from the brim of his hat, his eyes taking in the heaving mass on the floor, swaying in rhythm with the music. “On’y a couple o’ drunks,” answered the pock-marked officer; “an’ we just fired ’em out, not botherin’ to pull up for the wagon.” “I seen Daily and some o’ that crowd, in the barroom,” said another. “From the way things look he’s cappin’ for Kelly, and Kelly’s dealin’ out the dough for further orders.” “For drinks, eh?” The sergeant frowned. “Say Laughlin, go in there and tell Kelly I want to see him, right away. The damn fool oughtn’t make work for me!” Kelly had a roll of notes in his hand and was flourishing them animatedly over his head; a crowd of half drunken youths surged about him, approvingly; he was their idol, having usurped the post held an hour before by Shaffer, the collector for the brewery. “This is the stuff that makes the world move!” declared the saloonkeeper. “We’re all after it, me bucko’s, ivery wan av us an’ small blame till him that puts the fattest wad in the bank, eh?” “Yer dead right, Kel,” agreed a supporter. “Barkeeper,” remarked Kelly after a glance about, “me friends here are doin’ nawthin’.” He stripped a note from the bundle and threw it upon the sloppy bar. “Work that out,” requested he, “an’ tell me when it’s done. There’s more to folly, for I’m out for a good toime the noight.” “There’s a good t’ing!” exclaimed Nobby Foley. “He’s a blood, d’ye hear--a blood! He treats youse right, see?” “Gintlemen,” affirmed the object of these remarks, “I haven’t a mane bone in me body, an’ the man that do be after callin’ James Kelly a friend, is welcome till share his last dollar. Iv any av yez gits pinched does yez friends have till ax me twice till go yez bail? Be hivens!” excitedly, “there ain’t a magistrate in the city, Raypublican or Dimmycrat, that’ed kape yez in the jug a minyute after I wint forninst him and told him till lave ye go.”