Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/358

350 "You don't mind my putting it up?" the clergyman had asked in his thin, hungry little voice that same morning.

"Shure not!" Red had blurted; and the dodger had been posted accordingly.

The Reverend Paul Morton was a sad-faced, thin-lipped little man, whose trousers were frayed at the heels and baggy at the knees. His whiskers, reaching half-way to his chin, were pale as his mild blue eyes. For three years he had kept together body and soul—and the bodies and souls of a wife and seven children—on the scant salary allowed him out of the church endowment. He accepted the crust uncomplainingly, almost gladly. Instinctively resenting his mildness, which was almost cringing, the denizens of the River Front nevertheless stepped back to the curb and grinned whenever he passed them, with a pale little smile and a faint bowing acknowledgment of the courtesy.

"Don't you think you can come, Mr. Riley?" he asked drearily after he had put up the poster.

"Well, say, wouldn't be surprised if I could," Riley replied, knowing whilst he spoke that he would not.

"We should be glad to see you," the minister went on; "and bring any of your friends. We shall have excellent music. I am sure you would enjoy it. A Sargeant of the Salvation Army is going to sing. She promised this morning. And Mr. Cleaver, of St. Andrew's, is going to play the organ for us. It will be very fine." He crept out of the saloon, closing the door just in time to miss hearing Riley exclaim:

"I wish that dum little cuss 'u'd git a couple o' drinks in him. I b'lieve it 'u'd make a man of 'im, yet."

The stranger shuffled into the saloon not two minutes after the minister, having dodged two great horses, had ducked into the stairway leading to his church across the street.

The stranger was agreeably drunk. Wishing to be drunker, he approached the bar and slid a quarter across the sticky board.

Riley examined the coin before he set out the pale bottle.

"Oh, ish a'righ'," the other mumbled thickly.

He used the change to the best purpose—bought until there was nothing left. Then he shambled across to the stove and sat there a space in silence.

It was a cold day. The papers said "snow before morning." Business was light at Riley's. The proprietor stood looking out into the street. As he idled thus strains of harmony fell upon his ear and he turned. The stranger, rocking to and fro, was blowing a mouth-organ. The instrument was wheezing the air he had sung the first day. Riley wagged his head in time with it. When he finished the stranger looked up and his heavy eyes met Riley's, and he grinned foolishly.