"You was hired," answered Lawlor softly, as he filled his glass to the brim with the old rye whisky, "to be a cook, and you're the rottenest hash-slinger that ever served cold dough for biscuits; a blasted, roarin' fool you've already made out of yourself by singin' that song. I want another one to get the sound of that out of my ears. Tune up!" Thoughts of murder, ill-concealed, whitened the face of the sailor. "Some day--" he began hoarsely, and then stopped. For a vision came to him of blithe mornings when he should sit on the top of the corral fence rolling a cigarette, while some other puncher went into the herd and roped and saddled his horse. "D'you mean this--Drew?" he asked, with an odd emphasis. "D'you think I'm talking for fun?" "What'll I sing?" he asked in a voice which was reduced to a faint whisper by rage. "I dunno," mused Lawlor, "but maybe it ought to lie between 'Alice, Ben Bolt,' and 'Annie Laurie.' What d'you choose, partner?" He turned to Bard. "'Alice, Ben Bolt,' by all means. I don't think he could manage the Scotch." "Start!" commanded Lawlor. The sailor closed his eyes, tilted back his head, twisted his face to a hideous grimace, and then opening his shapeless mouth emitted a tremendous wail which took shape in the following words: "Oh, don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt, Sweet Alice, with hair like the sunshine--" "Shut up!" roared Lawlor. It required a moment for Shorty to unkink the congested muscles of his face. "What the hell's the matter now?" he inquired. "Whoever heard of 'hair like the sunshine'? There ain't no such thing possible. 'Hair so brown,' that's what the song says. Shorty, we got more feelin' for our ears than to let you go on singin' an' showin' your ignerance. G'wan back to the kitchen!" Kilrain drew a long breath, regarded Lawlor again with that considerate, expectant eye, and then turned on his heel and strode from the room. Back to Bard came fragments of tremendous cursing of an epic breadth and a world-wide inclusiveness. "Got to do things like this once in a while to keep 'em under my thumb," Lawlor explained genially. With all his might Bard was struggling to reconcile this big-handed vulgarian with his mental picture of the man who could write for an epitaph: "Here sleeps Joan, the wife of William Drew. She chose this place for rest." But the two ideas were not inclusive. He said aloud: "Aren't you afraid that that black-eyed fellow will run a knife between your ribs one of these dark nights?" "Who? My ribs?" exclaimed Lawlor, nevertheless stirring somewhat uneasily in his chair. "Nope, they know that I'm William Drew. They may be hard, but they know I'm harder." "Oh," drawled the other, and his eyes held with uncomfortable steadiness on the rosy face of Lawlor. "I understand." To cover his confusion Lawlor seized his glass. "Here's to you--drinkin' deep."