ther?" suggested Abe, cordially.

"I won't say 'no,'" Gay promptly acquiesced.

But Rocket was serving drink to Jim Thorpe at one of the little poker
tables on the far side of the room, and the butcher had to wait.

"How much are you givin'?" Smallbones inquired cautiously of Gay.

He was still worrying over the forthcoming demand on his charity. Gay
Promptly puffed himself up.

"Wal," he said, with some dignity. "Y'see she's got six kiddies, each
smaller nor the other. They mustn't starve for sure. Guess I'm givin'
twenty-fi' dollars."

"Wot?" almost shrieked the disgusted Smallbones.

"Yes," said the butcher-undertaker coldly. "An' _I_ ain't no trust
magnate."

"That's right up to you, Smallbones," remarked Abe, passing his friend
Gay his drink. "You'll natcherly give fifty."

But Abe's ponderous levity was too much for Smallbones.

"An' if I did it wouldn't be in answer to the hogwash preachin' you
ladle out. Anyways I'll give as it pleases me."

"Then I guess them kiddies'll starve, sure," remarked Wilkes heavily.

How much further the ruffled tempers of these men might have been
tried it is impossible to say, but at that moment a diversion was
created by the advent of the redoubtable doctor. And it was easy to
see at a glance how it was this man was able to sway the Barnriff
crowd. He was an aggressive specimen of unyielding force, lean, but
powerful of frame, with the light of overwhelming determination in a
pair of swift, bright eyes.

He glanced round the vast dingy bar-room. There were two tables of
poker going in opposite corners of the room, and a joyous collection
of variegated uncleanness "bucking" a bank in another corner. Then
there was the flower of Barnriff propping up the bar like a row of
daisies in a window box--only they lacked the purity of that simple
flower. He stepped at once to the centre of the room.

"Boys," he said in a hoarse, rasping voice, "I'm in a hurry. Guess
natur' don't wait fer nuthin' when she gits busy on matters wot
interest her; an' seein' Barnriff needs all the population that's
comin' to it with so energetic a funeral maker as our friend, Angel
Gay, around, I'll git goin'. I'm right here fer dollars fer pore Sally
Morby. She's broke, dead broke, an' she's got six kiddies, all with
their pore little bellies flappin' in the wind for want of a squar'
feed. Say, I ain't hyar to git gassin', I ain't hyar to make flowery
talk fer the sake o' them pore kiddies. I'm h