«Тобиас Ужасный» и другие рассказы

"

"It is Lieutenant Harrigan and his squad," Charley says as he comes back to the table where we are all standing. "Someone must tip him off you are here. Well, those who have rods to shed will shed them now."

At this, Joey Uptown steps up to Tobias Tweeney and hands him a large gun and says:

"Put this away on you somewhere," Joey says, "and then sit down and be quiet. These coppers are not apt to bother with you," Joey says, "if you sit still and mind your own business, but," Joey says, "it will be very tough on any of us they find with a rod.

"

Now of course what Joey says is very true, because he is only walking around and about on parole, and some of the others present are walking around the same way, and it is a very serious matter for a guy who is walking around on parole to be caught with a rod in his pocket. Well, Tobias Tweeney is somewhat dazed by his couple of drinks and he does not realize what is coming off, so he takes Joey's rod and puts it in his hip kick.

Then all of a sudden Harry the Horse and Angie the Ox and Little Mitzi, and all the others step up to him and hand him their rods and Tobias Tweeney somehow manages to stow the guns away on himself and sit down before Good Time Charley opens the door and in come the cops.

By this time Joey Uptown and all the others are scattered at different tables around the room, with no more than three at any one table, leaving Tobias Tweeney and me alone at the table where we are first sitting.

Furthermore, everybody is looking very innocent indeed, and all hands seem somewhat surprised at the intrusion of the cops.

I know Harrigan by sight, and I know most of his men, and they know there is no more harm in me than there is in a two–year–old baby, so they pay no attention to me whatever, or to Tobias Tweeney, either, but go around making Joey Uptown, and Angie the Ox, and all the others stand up while the cops fan them to see if they have any rods on them.

Naturally the cops do not find any rods on anybody, because the rods are all on Tobias Tweeney, and no one is going to fan Tobias Tweeney, especially at this particular moment, as Tobias is now half–asleep from Charley's liquor, and has no interest whatever in anything that is going on. In fact, Tobias is nodding in his chair.

Of course the cops are greatly disgusted at not finding any rods.