“We’ve got a dollar and seventy cents,” Richard Gordon said.
“Maybe we better get a pint then,” the red-headed Vet said. “My teeth are floating now.”
“No,” said the other. “This beer is good for you. This is draft beer. Stick with the beer. Let’s go and beat this guy up and come back drink some more beer.”
“No. Leave him alone.”
“No, pal. Not us. You said that rat ruined your wife.”
“My life. Not my wife.”
“Jese! Pardon me. I’m sorry, pal.”
“He defaulted and ruined the bank,” the other Vet said. “I’ll bet there’s a reward for him. By God, I seen a picture of him at the post office today.”
“What were you doing at the post office?” asked the other suspiciously.
“Can’t I get a letter?”
“What’s the matter with getting letters at camp?”
“Do you think I went to the postal savings?”
“What were you doing in the post office?”
“I just stopped by.”
“Take that,” said his pal and swung on him as well as he could in the crowd.
“There goes those two cell mates,” said somebody. Holding and punching, kneeing and butting, the two were pushed out of the door.
“Let ’em fight on the sidewalk,” the wide-shouldered young man said. “Those bastards fight three or four times a night.”
“They’re a couple of punchies,” another Vet said. “Red could fight once but he’s got the old rale.”
“They’ve both got it.”
“Red got it fighting a fellow in the ring,” a short chunky Vet said. “This fellow had the old rale and he was all broke out on the shoulders and back. Every time they’d go into a clinch he’d rub his shoulder under Red’s nose or across his puss.”
“Oh, nuts. What did he put his face there for?”
“That was the way Red carried his head when he was in close. Down, like this. And this fellow was just roughing him.”
“Oh, nuts. That story is all bull. Nobody ever got the old rale from anybody in a fight.”
“That’s what you think. Listen, Red was as clean a living kid as you ever saw. I knew him. He was in my outfit. He was a good little fighter, too. I mean good. He was married, too, to a nice girl. I mean nice. And this Benny Sampson gave him that old rale just as sure as I’m standing here.”
“Then sit down,” said another Vet. “How did Poochy get it?”
“He got it in Shanghai.”
“Where did you get yours?”
“I ain’t got it.”
“Where did Suds get it?”
“Off a girl in Brest, coming home.”
“That’s all you guys ever talk about. The old rale. What difference does the old rale make?”
“None, the way we are now,” one Vet said. “You’re just as happy with it.”
“Poochy’s happier. He don’t know where he is.”
“What’s the old rale?” Professor MacWalsey asked the man next to him at the bar. The man told him.
“I wonder what the derivation is,” Professor MacWalsey said.
“I don’t know,” said the man. “I’ve always heard it called the old rale since my first enlistment. Some call it ral. But usually they call it the old rale.”
“I’d like to know,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Most of those terms are old English words.”
“Why do they call it the old rale?” the Vet next to Professor MacWalsey asked another.
“I don’t know.”
Nobody seemed to know but all enjoyed the atmosphere of serious philological discussion.
Richard Gordon was next to Professor MacWalsey at the bar now. When Red and Poochy had started fighting he had been pushed down there and he had not resisted the move.
“Hello,” Professor MacWalsey said to him. “Do you want a drink?”
“Not with you,” said Richard Gordon.
“I suppose you’re right,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Did you ever see anything like this?”
“No,” said Richard Gordon.
“It’s very strange,” said Professor MacWalsey. “They’re amazing. I always come here nights.”
“Don’t you ever get in trouble?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Drunken fights.”
“I never seem to have any trouble.”
“A couple of friends of mine wanted to beat you up a couple of minutes ago.”
“Yes.”
“I wish I would have let them.”
“I don’t think it would make much difference,” said Professor MacWalsey in the odd way of speaking he had. “If I annoy you by being here I can go.”
“No,” said Richard Gordon. “I sort of like to be near you.”
“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.
“Have you ever been married?” asked Richard Gordon.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“My wife died during the influenza epidemic in 1918.”
“Why do you want to marry again now?”
“I think I’d be better at it now. I think perhaps I’d be a better husband now.”
“So you picked my wife.”
“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.
“Damn you,” said Richard Gordon, and hit him in the face.
Some one grabbed his arm. He jerked it loose and some one hit him crashingly behind the ear. He could see Professor MacWalsey, before him, still at the bar, his face red, blinking his eyes. He was reaching for another beer to replace the one Gordon had spilled, and Richard Gordon drew back his arm to hit him again. As he did so, something exploded again behind his ear and all the lights flared up, wheeled round, and then went out.
Then he was standing in the doorway of Freddy’s place. His head was ringing, and the crowded room was unsteady and wheeling slightly, and he felt sick to his stomach. He could see the crowd looking at him. The big-shouldered young man was standing by him. “Listen,” he was saying, “you don’t want to start any trouble in here. There’s enough fights in here with those rummies.”
“Who hit me?” asked Richard Gordon.
“I hit you,” said the wide young man. “That fellow’s a regular customer here. You want to take it easy. You don’t want to go to fight in here.”
Standing unsteadily Richard Gordon saw Professor MacWalsey coming toward him away from the crowd at the bar. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want anybody to slug you. I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do.”
“God damn you,” said Richard Gordon, and started toward him. It was the last thing he remembered doing for the wide young man set himself, dropped his shoulders slightly, and clipped him again, and he went down, this time, on the cement floor on his face. The wide young man turned to Professor MacWalsey. “That’s all right, Doc,” he said, hospitably. “He won’t annoy you now. What’s the matter with him anyway?”
“I’ve got to take him home,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Will he be all right?”
“Sure.”
“Help me to get him in a taxi,” said Professor MacWalsey. They carried Richard Gordon out between them and with the driver helping, put him in the old model T taxi.
“You’re sure he’ll be all right?” asked Professor MacWalsey.
“Just pull on his ears good when you want to bring him to. Put some water on him. Look out he don’t want to fight when he comes to. Don’t let him grab you, Doc.”
“No,” said Professor MacWalsey.
Richard Gordon’s head lay back at an odd angle in the back of the taxi and he made a heavy, rasping noise when he breathed. Professor MacWalsey put his arm under his head and held it so it did not bump against the seat.
“Where are we going?” asked the taxi driver.
“Out on the other end of town,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Past the Park. Down the street from the place where they sell mullets.”
“That’s the Rocky Road,” the driver said.
“Yes,” said Professor MacWalsey.
As they passed the first coffee shop up the street, Professor MacWalsey told the driver to stop. He wanted to go in and get some cigarettes. He laid Richard Gordon’s head down carefully on the seat and went into the coffee shop. When he came out to get back into the taxi, Richard Gordon was gone.
“Where did he go?” he asked the driver.
“That’s him up the street,” the driver said.
“Catch up with him.”
As the taxi pulled up even with him, Professor MacWalsey got out and went up to Richard Gordon who was lurching along the sidewalk.
“Come on, Gordon,” he said. “We’re going home.”
Richard Gordon looked at him.
“We?” he said, swaying.
“I want you to go home in this taxi.”
“You go to hell.”
“I wish you’d come,” Professor MacWalsey said. “I want you to get home safely.”
“Where’s your gang?” said Richard Gordon.
“What gang?”
“Your gang that beat me up.”
“That was the bouncer. I didn’t know he was going to hit you.”
“You lie,” said Richard Gordon. He swung at the red-faced man in front of him and missed him. He slipped forward onto his knees and got up slowly. His knees were scraped raw from the sidewalk, but he did not know it.
“Come on and fight,” he said brokenly.
“I don’t fight,” said Professor MacWalsey. “If you’ll get into the taxi I’ll leave you.”
“Go to hell,” said Richard Gordon and started down the street.
“Leave him go,” said the taxi driver. “He’s all right now.”
“Do you think he’ll be all right?”
“Hell,” the taxi driver said. “He’s perfect.”
“I’m worried about him,” Professor MacWalsey said.
“You can’t get him in without fighting him,” the taxi driver said. “Let him go. He’s fine. Is he your brother?”
“In a way,” said Professor MacWalsey.
He watched Richard Gordon lurching down the street until he was out of sight in the shadow from the big trees whose branches dipped down to grow into the ground like roots. What he was thinking as he watched him, was not pleasant. It is a mortal sin, he thought, a grave and deadly sin and a great cruelty, and while technically one’s religion may permit the ultimate result, I cannot pardon myself. On the other hand, a surgeon cannot desist while operating for fear of hurting the patient. But why must all the operations in life be performed without an anæsthetic? If I
