"He hasn’t touched a drop for five years," said McDougall indulgently. "But when they kangarooed Mason--" McDougall looked at Gibbs, not in regret or pity, nor with disapproval, but as one might look at a woman stricken with some recent grief. To him, getting drunk seemed to be as natural a way of expressing emotion as weeping or wringing the hands. Marriott gazed on the squalid little tragedy of a long friendship, gazed a moment, then turned away, and looked out of his window. Above the hideous roofs he could see the topmasts of schooners, and presently a great white propeller going down the river. It was going north, to Mackinac, to the Soo, to Duluth, and the sight of it filled Marriott with a longing for the cold blue waters and the sparkling air of the north. Gibbs evidently had come to talk about Mason’s case, but when he began to speak his voice was lost somewhere in his throat; his head sank, he appeared to sink into sleep. McDougall glanced at him and laughed. Then he turned seriously to Marriott. "It was an outrage," he said. "Mason has been right here in town--I saw him that day. He ought to be alibied." "Couldn’t you testify?" asked Marriott. McDougall looked at Marriott with suspicion, and hesitated. But suddenly Gibbs, whom they had supposed to be asleep, said impatiently, without opening his eyes: "Oh, hell!--go on and tell him. He’s a right guy, I tell you. He’s wise to the gun." And Gibbs slumbered again. "Well," said McDougall with a queer expression, "my business is unfortunately of such a nature that it can’t stand much investigation, and I don’t make the best witness in the world." Gibbs suddenly sat up, opened his eyes, and drew an enormous roll of money from his pocket. "How much do I owe you?" he asked, unrolling the bills. "It comes out of me," he said. Marriott was disappointed in this haggling appeal, not for his own sake, but for Gibbs’s; it detracted from the romantic figure he had idealized for the man, just as Gibbs’s intoxication had done. Marriott hesitated in the usual difficulty of appraising professional services, but when, presently, he rather uncertainly fixed his fee, Gibbs counted out the amount and gave it to him. Marriott took the money, with a wonder as to where it had come from, what its history was; he imagined in a flash a long train of such transactions as McDougall must be too familiar with, of such deeds as had been involved in the hearing before the commissioner, of other transactions, intricate, remote, involved, confused in morals--and he thrust the bills into his pocket. "It comes out of me," Gibbs explained again. "They hadn’t any fall money." "Have you heard from them?" asked Marriott, who did not know what fall money was, and wished to change the subject. "No," said Gibbs, shaking his head. "I’m going out to the trial. I’ll take along that newspaper guy and some witnesses for the others. I’ll get ’em a mouthpiece. Maybe we can spring ’em."