mug of that embalming fluid.” He thrust his horsehead indicatively at the coffee urn.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ben muttered in terms of loathing. “Do you ever wash your damned hands before you come in here?” he burst out irritably.
Ben was twenty. Men did not think of his age.
“Would you like some cold pork, son?” said Coker, with his yellow malicious grin.
Ben made a retching noise in his throat, and put his hand upon his stomach.
“What’s the matter, Ben?” Harry Tugman laughed heavily and struck him on the back.
Ben got off the stool, took his coffee mug and the piece of tanned mince pie he had ordered, and moved to the other side of Harry Tugman. Every one laughed. Then he jerked his head toward McGuire with a quick frown.
“By God, Tug,” he said. “They’ve got us cornered.”
“Listen to him,” said McGuire to Coker. “A chip off the old block, isn’t he? I brought that boy into the world, saw him through typhoid, got the old man over seven hundred drunks, and I’ve been called eighteen different kinds of son of a bitch for my pains ever since. But let one of’em get a belly ache,” he added proudly, “and you’ll see how quick they come running to me. Isn’t that right, Ben?” he said, turning to him.
“Oh, listen to this!” said Ben, laughing irritably and burying his peaked face in his coffee mug. His bitter savor filled the place with life, with tenderness, with beauty. They looked on him with drunken, kindly eyes—at his gray scornful face and the lonely demon flicker of his smile.
“And I tell you something else,” said McGuire, ponderously wheeling around on Coker, “if one of them’s got to be cut open, see who gets the job. What about it, Ben?” he asked.
“By God, if you ever cut me open, McGuire,” said Ben, “I’m going to be damned sure you can walk straight before you do.”
“Come on, Hugh,” said Coker, prodding McGuire under his shoulder. “Stop chasing those beans around the plate. Crawl off or fall off that damned stool—I don’t care which.”
