The law of moral reaction sent the gang home early that evening, and by ten o'clock it was plain that the day's work was done. Malachi had the bartender help him on with the frieze overcoat, and was adjusting his hat to a skull that still was sore, when the door opened. Malachi turned with a scowl, when the draft struck him, and saw Sullivan, the ward committeeman, and Brennan, Malachi's political residuary legatee. Brennan's eyes were sparkling merrily, his red face was round with laughter, and he came in with a breeze like the March day.
"Hello, Mal'chi," he called, smiting the bar with the thick of his fist, "ain't goin' home, are you? It's just the shank of the evening. What'll you have?" Then, as one who likes to think he has special privileges, he said to the bartender aside: "Give's a nice little drink of whisky."
Malachi neither moved nor spoke. Brennan felt his coldness and flashed the intelligence to Sullivan.
"Just saw Jim Degnan," he said, grasping the sweating whisky bottle.
"You did, did you?" said Malachi, in a challenging tone.
"Yes," said Brennan, determined to be genial.
