The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 16

"Yes." And the paper was handed over to him.

Peter ran over the three doc.u.ments. "I see," he said, "you are only the caretaker really, the brewer having an a.s.signment of the lease and a chattel mortgage on your fixtures and stock."

"That's it," said Dennis. "It's mighty quick yez got at it. It's caretaker Oi am, an' a divil of a care it is. Shure, who wants to work seven days a week, if he can do wid six?"

"You should have declined to agree to that condition?"

"Then Oi'd have been turned out. Begobs, it's such poor beer that it's little enough Oi sell even in seven days."

"Why don't you get your beer elsewhere then?"

"Why, it's Edelhein put me in there to sell his stuff, an' he'd never let me sell anythin' else."

"Then Edelhein is really the princ.i.p.al, and you are only put in to keep him out of sight?"

"That's it"

"And you have put no money in yourself?"

"Divil a cent."

"Then why doesn't he pay the fine?"

"He says Oi have no business to be afther bein' fined. As if any one sellin' his beer could help bein' fined!"

"How is that?" said Peter, inferring that selling poor beer was a finable offence, yet ignorant of the statute.

"Why yez see, sir, the b'ys don't like that beer--an' sensible they are--so they go to other places, an' don't come to my place."

"But that doesn't explain your fines."

"Av course it does. Shure, if the boys don't come to my place, it's little Oi can do at the primary, an' so it's no pull Oi have in politics, to get the perlice an' the joodges to be easy wid me, like they are to the rest."

Peter studied his blank wall a bit.

"Shure, if it's good beer Oi had," continued Moriarty, "Oi'd be afther beatin' them all, for Oi was always popular wid the b'ys, on account of my usin' my fists so fine."

Peter smiled. "Why don't you go into something else?" he asked.

"Well, there's mother and the three childers to be supported, an' then Oi'd lose my influence at the primary."

"What kind of beer does Mr. Bohlmann make?" asked Peter, somewhat irrelevantly.

"Ah," said Moriarty, "that's the fine honest beer! There's never anythin' wrong wid his. An' he treats his keepers fair. Lets them do as they want about keepin' open Sundays, an' never squeezes a man when he's down on his luck."

Peter looked at his wall again. Peter was learning something.

"Supposing," he asked, "I was able to get your fine remitted, and that clause struck out of the lease. Would you open on Sunday?"

"Divil a bit."

"When must you pay the fine?"

"Oi'm out on bail till to-morrow, sir."

"Then leave these papers with me, and come in about this time."

Peter studied his wall for a bit after his new client was gone. He did not like either saloon-keepers or law-breakers, but this case seemed to him to have--to have--extenuating circ.u.mstances. His cogitations finally resulted in his going to Justice Gallagher's court. He found the judge rather curt.

"He's been up here three times in as many months, and I intend to make an example of him."

"But why is only he arrested, when every saloon keeper in the neighborhood does the same thing?"

"Now, sir," said the judge, "don't waste any more of my time. What's the next case?"

A look we have mentioned once or twice came into Peter's face. He started to leave the court, but encountered at the door one of the policemen whom he was "friends with," according to the children, which meant that they had chatted sometimes in the "angle."

"What sort of a man is Dennis Moriarty?" he asked of him.

"A fine young fellow, supporting his mother and his younger brothers."

"Why is Justice Gallagher so down on him?"

The policeman looked about a moment. "It's politics, sir, and he's had orders."

"From whom?"

"That's more than we know. There was a row last spring in the primary, and we've had orders since then to lay for him."

Peter stood and thought for a moment. "What saloon-keeper round here has the biggest pull?" he asked.

"It's all of them, mostly, but Blunkers is a big man."

"Thank you," said Peter. He stood in the street thinking a little. Then he walked a couple of blocks and went into Blunkers's great gin palace.

"I want to see the proprietor," he said.

"Dat's me," said a man who was reading a paper behind the bar.

"Do you know Justice Gallagher?"

"Do I? Well, I guess," said the man.

"Will you do me the favor to go with me to his court, and get him to remit Dennis Moriarty's fine?"

"Will I? No. I will not. Der's too many saloons, and one less will be bully."

"In that case," said Peter quietly, "I suppose you won't mind my closing yours up?"