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Updated: May 13, 2025
He had acquired a kind of prestige since the night of Allan's party, and two of the fellows whom he met there Armstrong and Gillespie became his friends at College and the Howff. He swaggered before them as he had swaggered at school both in Barbie and Skeighan, and now there was no Swipey Broon to cut him over the coxcomb.
At full gallop Tommy drove his bronchos up to the door of the first saloon and before they were well stopped burst open the door, crying out, "Give us a hand here, min, for the love o' God!" Swipey, the saloon-keeper, came himself to the door. "What have you there, Tommy?" he asked. "It's mesilf don't know. It wuz alive when we started out. Are ye there, Scotty?" There was no answer.
Swipey hesitated a moment, but before he could make up his mind what to do, the doctor was leading his men with their burden past the bar door. "Show us a room at the back, Swipey, upstairs. It must be warm. Be quick about it." Swearing deep oaths, Swipey led the way. "It must be warm, eh? Want a bath in it next, I suppose." "This will do," said the doctor when they reached the room.
"Like our own docthor, he is, the blank, dirty suckers they are! Sure, they'd pull a bung hole out be the roots!" "He's not that way," replied Swipey, "our doctor." "Not much he ain't!" cried Shorty. "But he's into the biggest game with 'Mexico' an' the boys ye ever seen in this camp." "Fer the love av Hivin git him!" cried Tommy. "The man is dyin'. Here, min, let's git him in."
"That's what I say, docthor," answered Tommy, "but the bloody haythen wudn't let him in." "How's this, Swipey?" said the doctor sternly, turning to the saloon-keeper, who still stood in the door. "He's not comin' in here. How do I know what he's got?" "I'll take that responsibility," replied the doctor. "In he goes. Here, take him up on the robe, men. Steady, now."
Yet even his henchmen saw through his swaggering. Swipey Broon turned on him one night, and threatened to split his mouth, and he went as white as the wall behind him. Among his other follies, he assumed the pose of a man who could an he would who had it in him to do great things, if he would only set about them.
For a moment he rocked to and fro, doubled up in pain, crying "Ooh!" with a rueful face, and squeezing his hand between his thighs to dull its sharper agonies. Then with redoubled wrath bold Swipey hurled him at the foe. Swipey let him up. John came at him with whirling arms, but Swipey jouked and gave him one on the mouth that split his lip.
The slight had rankled in the boy's mind. John, with a rankling memory of their former coldness, flouted every overture, by letting them see plainly that he preferred to their company that of Swipey Broon, Jock M'Craw, and every ragamuffin of the town. It was a kind of back-handed stroke at them. That was the paltry form which his father's pride took in him.
When Swipey turned out of the Fleckie Road he was as black as the ace of spades, a most disreputable phiz. And when Gourlay yelled his loud welcome to that grimy object, what he wanted to convey to the two girls was: "Ho, ho, my pretty misses, I'm on bowing terms with you, and yet when I might go up and speak to ye, I prefer to go off and drink with a sweep, d'ye see?
Bacchus's didn't chalk up trust, where hard money was flung upon the counter; but all the accumulated wealth of Bacchus's high-priest, Tom Swipey, and of the seven worshippers now drinking in his honour, could not suffice to make up enough of change: therefore, after two gallons left behind him in libations as aforesaid, and two more bottled up for a drink-offering at home, Roger was contented to be owed seven and fourpence; a debt never likely to be liquidated.
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