Tales From Gavagan's Bar Read Online Free

produced a couple of Scotch-and-soda glasses and filled them halfway up, adjusting the liquid level with meticulous care. "Skaal!" said Ewaldt, and tossed his off as though it were a pony. McClintock went more slowly, rolling the last mouthful around his tongue before he sank it, and said: "That makes you cock your tail, now! Fill them again, Mr. Cohan."
     
                  Thott said: "I think that, to be perfectly fair, a slight interval should be allowed for the—ah, dissipation of the shock effect. Mr. McClintock, if I am not too importunate, may I ask what led you to change professions?"
     
                  "Education," said McClintock. "Education and the grace of God. I took a correspondence course in writing short stories while I was in Dannemora." He reached for his glass, which Mr. Cohan had loaded again. "Ah, up Erin!" The two Cohans nodded approval, and Thott raised his own glass in salutation. Ewaldt drained his potion off without lifting an eyebrow, tapped the glass with a fingernail, and pushed it toward Mr. Cohan. The bartender reached back for another bottle of Irish and refilled the glasses for a third time.
     
                  Ewaldt beamed. "In my country," he said, "we drink not to the country, but to all the pretty girls. Now I have drunk with you to your country, and you are drinking with me to all the pretty girls in Danmark. Skaal!"
     
                  His third glass of Irish followed the course of the other two with the same easy, fluid motion. McClintock again took a little more time. There was a slight frown in the middle of his forehead, and he appeared to be considering something quite seriously.
     
                  "It was the prison chaplain, God bless his soul," he said. "He explained to me that the gains from the profession of crime were b'no means equal to the effort expended. He made me see, he told me that ..." He turned halfway round and emitted a large burp.
     
                  Patrolman Cohan gazed earnestly at him, then turned toward the others and began talking rapidly: "Did I ever tell you now, about the time I found me own wife in the paddy wagon, and her mad enough to have the left leg of me, and saying it was all my fault? It was—" He laid a hand on McClintock's shoulder, but Dippie Louie shook it off.
     
                  "I'm okay," he said. "Fill them up again." "You are not to be drinking so fast," said Ewaldt evenly. "That is how a man is—how do you say it?—be-drunken, unless he is Danish."
     
                  "I tell you I'm all right," said McClintock, "and I know how fast I can put it away. Fill them up again, Mr. Cohan."
     
                  Mr. Cohan obliged. The last drops came out of the second bottle of Irish as he was filling the glasses, and he had to open a third one.
     
                  Professor Thott said: "As a matter of fact, there's something in what the Captain says, though not quite for that reason. It's a question of liquefaction, of the body not being able to absorb any more liquid in any form. Fix me another Manhattan, will you, Mr. Cohan?"
     
                  "A Manhattan?" said Ewaldt. "I am remembering them; they are good. You will please to make me one, also." He addressed McClintock with a pleasant smile. "This is not part of the contest, but an extra for pleasure. But you are correct, Mr. Professor. I shall relieve myself."
     
                  He started toward the toilet but was detained by a cry from McClintock: "Hey, no you don't! I seen that one pulled the time I drank against the three Stranahans in Chi."
     
                  "Why don't you both go?" said Thott, "with Patrolman Cohan to see there's no foul play. After all, he represents the law and can be trusted to be impartial."
     
                  As the trio disappeared through the door, he turned to Mr. Cohan: "I hate to