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They regarded him with awe, even forgetting to drink when, in certain stages of his cups, he entertained by the hour in one or other of the groggeries a circle of the most abandoned characters in New York thieves, cracksmen, murderers actual or potential, "shoulder-hitters," sailors who came ashore to drink the fieriest rum they could find, prostitutes, dead-beats, degenerates, derelicts with a flow of talk that was like the flashing of jewels in the gutter.
"Well, I was going to say," went on the elderly man, "that civil engineers in these days get just as good wages without being shoulder-hitters. You'll get along faster on the peace basis." That was Parker's reflection two days later when he was in the room of the chief engineer of the P. K. & R. system, at the company's general offices.
When Tacitus tells us that gladiators have not so much stomach for fighting as soldiers, we remember our own roughs and shoulder-hitters at the beginning of the war, and are inclined to think that Macer and Billy Wilson illustrated a general truth. But, unfortunately, Octavius found prize-fighters of another metal, not to speak of Spartacus.
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