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Having limitless money, the foe decided for sundry gatherings. They also outlined processions, hired music by the band, and bought beer by the barrel. They would have their speakers to address the commons in halls and from trucks.
On each attempt they were encountered and dispersed. More than once the Red Jackets, backed by the faithful Tin Whistles, took possession of a meeting, put up their own orators and adopted their own resolutions. If the police were called, they invariably arrested our enemies, being sapient of their own safety and equal to the work of locating the butter on their personal bread. If the enemy through their henchmen or managers made physical resistance, the Tin Whistles put them outside the hall, and whether through door or window came to be no mighty matter.
At times the Red Jackets and their reserves of Tin Whistles would permit the opposition to open a meeting. When the first orator had been eloquent for perhaps five minutes, a phalanx of Tin Whistles would arise in their places, and a hailstorm of sponges, soaking wet and each the size of ones head, would descend upon the rostrum. It was a never-failing remedy; there lived never chairman nor orator who would face that fusillade. Sometimes the lights were turned out; and again, when it was an open-air meeting and the speakers to talk from a truck, a bunch of crackers would be exploded under the horses and a runaway occur. That simple device was sure to cut the meeting short by carrying off the orators. The foe arranged but one procession; that was disposed of on the fringe of our territory by an unerring, even if improper, volley of eggs and vegetables and similar trumpery. The artillery used would have beaten back a charge by cavalry.
Still the enemy had the money, and on that important point could overpower us like ten for one, and did. Here and there went their agents, sowing sly riches in the hope of a harvest of votes. To counteract this still-hunt where the argument was cash, I sent the word abroad that our people were to take the money and promise votes. Then they were to break the promise.
Bunco the foe! was the watchword; take their money and con them!
This instruction was deemed necessary for our safety. I educated our men to the thought that the more money they got by these methods, the higher they would stand with Big Kennedy and me. If it were not for this, hundreds would have taken a price, and then, afraid to come back to us, might have gone with the banners of the enemy for that campaign at least. Now they would get what they could, and wear it for a feather in their caps. They exulted in such enterprise; it was spoiling the Egyptian; having filled their pockets they would return and make a brag of the fact. By these schemes we kept our strength. The enemy parted with money by the thousands, yet never the vote did they obtain. The goods failed of delivery.
Sheeny Joe was a handy man to Big Kennedy. He owned no rank; but voluble, active, well dressed, and ready with his money across a barroom counter, he grew to have a value. Not once in those years which fell in between our encounter on the dock and this time I have in memory, did Sheeny Joe express aught save friendship for me. His nose was queer of contour as the result of my handiwork, but he met the blemish in a spirit of philosophy and displayed no rancors against me as the author thereof. On the contrary, he was friendly to the verge of fulsome.
Sheeny Joe sold himself to the opposition, hoof and hide and horn. Nor was this a mock disposal of himself, although he gave Big Kennedy and myself to suppose he still held by us in his heart. No, it wasnt the money that changed him; rather I should say that for all his pretenses, his hankerings of revenge against me had never slept. It was now he believed his day to compass it had come. The business was no more no less than a sheer bald plot to take my life, with Sheeny Joe to lie behind it the bug of evil under the dark chip.
It was in the early evening at my own home. Sheeny Joe came and called me to the door, and all in a hustle of hurry.
Big Kennedy wants you to come at once to the Tub of Blood, said Sheeny Joe.
The Tub of Blood was a hang-out for certain bludgeon-wielding thugs who lived by the coarser crimes of burglary and highway robbery. It was suspected by Big Kennedy and myself as a camping spot for repeaters whom the enemy had been at pains to import against us. We had it then in plan to set the Tin Whistles to the sacking of it three days before the vote.
On this word from Sheeny Joe, and thinking that some new programme was afoot, I set forth for the Tub of Blood. As I came through the door, a murderous creature known as Strong-Arm Dan was busy polishing glasses behind the bar. He looked up, and giving a nod toward a door in the rear, said:
They want you inside.
The moment I set foot within that rear door, I saw how it was a trap. There were a round dozen waiting, and each the flower of a desperate flock.
In the first surprise of it I did not speak, but instinctively got the wall to my back. As I faced them they moved uneasily, half rising from their chairs, growling, but speaking no word. Their purpose was to attack me; yet they hung upon the edge of the enterprise, apparently in want of a leader. I was not a yard from the door, and having advantage of their slowness began making my way in that direction. They saw that I would escape, and yet they couldnt spur their courage to the leap. It was my perilous repute as a hitter from the shoulder that stood my friend that night.
At last I reached the door. Opening it with my hand behind me, my eyes still on the glaring hesitating roughs, I stepped backward into the main room.
Good-night, gentlemen, was all I said.
Youll set up the gin, wont you? cried one, finding his voice.
Sure! I returned, and I tossed Strong-Arm Dan a gold piece as I passed the bar. Giveem what they want while it lasts, said I.
That demand for gin mashed into the teeth of my thoughts like the cogs of a wheel. It would hold that precious coterie for twenty minutes. When I got into the street, I caught the shadow of Sheeny Joe as he twisted around the corner.
It was a half-dozen blocks from the Tub of Blood that I blew the gathering call of the Tin Whistles. They came running like hounds to huntsman. Ten minutes later the Tub of Blood lay a pile of ruins, while Strong-Arm Dan and those others, surprised in the midst of that guzzling I had paid for, with heads and faces a hash of wounds and blood and the fear of death upon them, were running or staggering or crawling for shelter, according to what strength remained with them.
Its plain, said Big Kennedy, when I told of the net that Sheeny Joe had spread for me, its plain that you havent shed your milk-teeth yet. However, youll be older by an by, an then you wont follow off every band of music that comes playin down the street. No, I dont blame Sheeny Joe; politics is like draw-poker, an everybodys got a right to fill his hand if he can. Still, while I dont blame him, its up to us to get hunk an even on th play. Here Big Kennedy pondered for the space of a minute. Then he continued: I think wed better make it up-the-river better railroad the duffer. Disciplines been gettin slack of late, an an example will work in hot an handy. The next crook wont pass us out the double-cross when he sees what comes off in th case of Sheeny Joe.
CHAPTER VIII THE FATE OF SHEENY JOE
BIG KENNEDYS suggestion of Sing Sing for Sheeny Joe did not fit with my fancy. Not that a cropped head and a suit of stripes would have been misplaced in the instance of Sheeny Joe, but I had my reputation to consider. It would never do for a first bruiser of his day to fall back on the law for protection. Such coward courses would shake my standing beyond recovery. It would have disgraced the Tin Whistles; thereafter, in that vigorous brotherhood, my commands would have earned naught save laughter. To arrest Sheeny Joe would be to fly in the face of the Tin Whistles and their dearest ethics. When to this I called Big Kennedys attention, he laughed as one amused.