CHAPTER X

THE LITTLE RED DEVIL

Harkins looked up from his loaded desk, glancing at the clock. It was after ten. The city editor frowned heavily and called to Fatty, who was just passing him on his way out.

"Stearns," he inquired, "have you seen O'Byrn? He has not reported, nor did he ask off for this evening."

"Perhaps he's sick, sir," nervously volunteered Fatty, who knew better but did not intend to give his co-worker away. "Seems to me he looked kind o' peaked yesterday."

"He could easily have sent word," doubtfully rejoined Harkins. "However, you might inquire and let me know. Or, if you see him, send him in here," and he turned to his desk.

Fatty went out. "Send him in here!" he chuckled grimly. "If he's stayed with that bunch he was with at six o'clock, Harkins would pass him on to the gold cure."

All the staff, save Harkins, knew it by this time. Micky, after a season of well doing that was protracted for him, had broken out again in one of his periodical sprees. It was not of the innocuous variety of indulgence that affords satiety in a single evening, leaving the victim remorseful and fortified against another lapse for an indefinite time. Of such are the fortunate, who are immune from the wiles of a sleepless, diabolical appetite. With Micky it was different. To resist a craving which never really slumbered meant real effort and unceasing vigilance. To succumb meant usually an unrecking debauch of days, while the little red devil worked its sweet will with him, to finally leave him spent and shaken, a temporary sodden wreck. This was the grim enemy, coupled with an unreasoning love of roving, that had made him, rarely talented as he was, a shifting vagrant of the news. It had landed him, ragged and unkempt, at the door of the Courier office. Now it bade fair to cast him forth again, shipwrecked at this most prosperous point of his fortunes, to try once more a dreary, uncertain future, with the gibing ghosts of lost opportunities ever at his elbow; with the maddening memory of a forfeited love, the truest he would ever know, mocking him.

Fatty did not inquire for Micky at his lodgings, nor did he attempt to find him and give him Harkins' message. He omitted the first because he was well aware that Micky would not be found there for some time, the second because he did not care to meet O'Byrn and his crew, for fear that he would be drawn into the maelstrom. He knew Micky's insistence and Fatty was cautious. Thirdly, he felt assured that Harkins would be advised of the cause of Micky's absence in due time, and Stearns had no desire to figure as a bird of ill omen. So he went about his tasks and discreetly dodged places that might perchance hold the uproarious O'Byrn and his riotous cronies.

Fortune was against Stearns, however, for it led him, in quest of an elusive item, into the rotunda of the Palace hotel. He met his man there, hastily secured his story, and started out. The entrance to the wine room was at one side. There was the sound of revelry within.

As Stearns was about to pass out, the swinging doors of the wine room were flung open and there appeared, flushed and disheveled, the riotous O'Byrn. At sight of Fatty, who gasped and made a wild bolt to escape, Micky emitted a whoop of triumph and swooped down upon him. He captured him handily and despite his desperate struggles propelled him in headlong fashion into the wine room, for the Irishman was as wiry as he was slender. Stearns found himself in the center of a bibulous throng which included newspaper men, speedy young sports and a few odd bits of _débris_, picked up on the rising flood. They crowded about Fatty, some clamoring for introductions, some making facetious comment on the manner of his entrance, still others rendering him tribute in dubious song. For a moment the din was indescribable, while the "chemist" made ineffectual appeals for order. Then Micky managed to make himself heard above the babel in a demand for quiet.

"Fatness," said he, with a wave of his hand, "these are the Indians. Indians, this are Fatty. Fatty, the Indians are drunk. Indians, Fatty ain't drunk now but he must be made so. Does it go?" A chorus of affirmative yells made answer.

"Now, Fatty," continued O'Byrn earnestly, "in meeting this little wish of ours for your subsequent comfort, be a gentleman. Don't show a grasping spirit, like the two meanest men on record. Never heard of 'em? Well, one of 'em was asked by a friend to have a drink. Asked what he'd take he waited till the buyer had ordered a whisky and then says, 'Gimme two beers,' so as to get his ten cents' worth. Other one of 'em was worse 'n that. Friend asked him what he'd have, an' says he, 'If you don't mind, I'd rather have the money.' No, Indians, Fatty ain't like that. Ask him what he'll have, and the modesty of his demands would put those graspin' dubs to shame."

"Gee, Micky," gurgled Stearns, trying to squirm away, "I ain't got time, honest I ain't. I've got an assignment."

The crowd closed in, holding him securely. Micky mused with corrugated brow. Thus far the only evidences of his indulgence were an unusual sparkle of the eye, a crimsoned countenance and a bewildering flow of language.

"'Assignment,'" cogitated Micky, "what does that mean? Where have I heard that word? Let me forget before I remember already. Let us drink to forget. Vat iss, Fatty?"

Fatty gulped despairingly. There was no hope. "Birch beer," he murmured resignedly. There sounded a universal groan.

"Birch beer!" echoed O'Byrn, in a positive squeal. "I wonder if the mixer hasn't got some Mellin's food? Siphon some milk into him; do, the sweet thing! No, I'll tell you what you'll drink, Fatty. It'll be a Mamie Taylor, with me!"

There was unanimous approval registered in a strident roar. Despite Stearns' protest the "chemist" was urged to mix him a Mamie, Fatty finally becoming silenced in meek submission. Resolving to "shake the bunch" at the first favorable moment, he gazed doubtfully at the seductive mixture in his glass. Micky held up his Mamie and soliloquized.

"This Mamie is a jade," he remarked, with an air of finality that effectually settled the matter. "She's that smooth and insinuating, so agreeable, that it seems as if you could drink her all night, so you generally do. Plain whisky's more honest. It's got that old, shivery yah-yah taste to it that keeps warnin' you all the time to sidetrack, so you're apt to do it before you get telescoped by the D T's. But these blamed fancy flips are what play the devil with a fellow. They're come-ons, clear from champagne to ginger ale splits. They taste so pretty that the next is a necessity, and after that, in the pleasant salve to the palate, you lose count. Take Mamie here. She's the worst in the push. You can gauge your capacity in any other line except on her. She figures her own capacity and the figures always lie, as you realize next morning. Much is a sufficiency, always. More is a superfluperosity.

"In this connection, Mamie reminds me of a story of an old man up north who had slipped from grace for some years and never thought any more of the religious teachings of childhood till trouble switched in, though that's common enough. But along came a famine time and everyone was livin' on short commons. The old man was urged to make a family prayer for some of the necessities. He wasn't used to it and shied considerable, but it was need that egged him on. Well, he got started O. K. with 'O Lord, send us a bar'l o' pork. Send us a bar'l o' sugar. Send us a bar'l o'--o'--pepper--Oh, hell! that's too much pepper!' was the way he rang off.

"Now that's what I'll be sayin' about Mamie, too much of her, when I come to, but such is her infernal fascination that--" He broke off with a wild clutch at Fatty's receding coat tail. Stearns had seized the favorable moment to escape. He got out before Micky could catch him. As O'Byrn was about to shoot through the door in pursuit of him, it swung inward and a familiar figure confronted the little Irishman.

"Well, Micky," remarked Dick dryly, "don't you think you've had enough? Better come along."

For answer O'Byrn tried to drag Dick to the bar. "Come on, old man," he shouted. "Get in! There's Mamies to burn."

Dick had heard of his co-worker's outbreak and hurried from the office in quest of him, chancing to learn where he was. Micky had talked with him previously, regarding his weakness, and Dick knew what its uninterrupted continuance would mean.

"Come home, Micky," he urged, "before you get maudlin. Bunk in and get a good night's rest and you'll be all right for work tomorrow." He led Micky insistently out of the wine room, unmindful of the protests of O'Byrn's companions. They passed through the office to the street.

Micky had been quiet for a moment but now his libations reasserted their influence. He struggled with Dick, voicing sundry curses.

"What d' ye mean?" he demanded. "Let me go, I'm going back. Mind your own business, can't you?"

"Shut up!" growled Dick fiercely. "Can't you see people are looking at us? Close your face and come along like a gentleman, for, I tell you, you're going home!"

Then something happened. Before Micky's haggard eyes appeared mistily, taking swift and tangible substance, a girl's face, young and lovely, just now convulsed with horror. Then it was gone, leaving a leaden weight in Micky's breast, while the vapors rose sluggishly from his benumbed brain. Reason, shrinking and ashamed, looked out from his hot eyes. He braced defiantly though hopelessly.

"It's all right, Dick, I'll go home," he said in a strange low tone and they walked in silence down the street.