One night Dag Daughtry sat at a table in the saloon called the
Pile-drivers' Home. He was in a parlous predicament. Harder than ever
had it been to secure odd jobs, and he had reached the end of his
savings. Earlier in the evening he had had a telephone conference with
the Ancient Mariner, who had reported only progress with an exceptionally
strong nibble that very day from a retired quack doctor.
"Let me pawn my rings," the Ancient Mariner had urged, not for the first
time, over the telephone.
"No, sir," had been Daughtry's reply. "We need them in the business.
They're stock in trade. They're atmosphere. They're what you call a
figure of speech. I'll do some thinking to-night an' see you in the
morning, sir. Hold on to them rings an' don't be no more than casual in
playin' that doctor. Make 'm come to you. It's the only way. Now
you're all right, an' everything's hunkydory an' the goose hangs high.
Don't you worry, sir. Dag Daughtry never fell down yet."
But, as he sat in the Pile-drivers' Home, it looked as if his fall-down
was very near. In his pocket was precisely the room-rent for the
following week, the advance payment of which was already three days
overdue and clamorously demanded by the hard-faced landlady. In the
rooms, with care, was enough food with which to pinch through for another
day. The Ancient Mariner's modest hotel bill had not been paid for two
weeks--a prodigious sum under the circumstances, being a first-class
hotel; while the Ancient Mariner had no more than a couple of dollars in
his pocket with which to make a sound like prosperity in the ears of the
retired doctor who wanted to go a-treasuring.
Most catastrophic of all, however, was the fact that Dag Daughtry was
three quarts short of his daily allowance and did not dare break into the
rent money which was all that stood between him and his family and the
street. This was why he sat at the beer table with Captain Jorgensen,
who was just returned with a schooner-load of hay from the Petaluma
Flats. He had already bought beer twice, and evinced no further show of
thirst. Instead, he was yawning from long hours of work and waking and
looking at his watch. And Daughtry was three quarts short! Besides,
Hanson had not yet been smashed, so that the cook-job on the schooner
still lay ahead an unknown distance in the future.
In his desperation, Daughtry hit upon an idea with which to get another
schooner of steam beer. He did not like steam beer, but it was cheaper
than lager.
"Look here, Captain," he said. "You don't know how smart that Killeny
Boy is. Why, he can count just like you and me."
"Hoh!" rumbled Captain Jorgensen. "I seen 'em do it in side shows. It's
all tricks. Dogs an' horses can't count."
"This dog can," Daughtry continued quietly. "You can't fool 'm. I bet
you, right now, I can order two beers, loud so he can hear and notice,
and then whisper to the waiter to bring one, an', when the one comes,
Killeny Boy'll raise a roar with the waiter."
"Hoh! Hoh! How much will you bet?"
The steward fingered a dime in his pocket. If Killeny failed him it
meant that the rent-money would be broken in upon. But Killeny couldn't
and wouldn't fail him, he reasoned, as he answered:
"I'll bet you the price of two beers."
The waiter was summoned, and, when he had received his secret
instructions, Michael was called over from where he lay at Kwaque's feet
in a corner. When Steward placed a chair for him at the table and
invited him into it, he began to key up. Steward expected something of
him, wanted him to show off. And it was not because of the showing off
that he was eager, but because of his love for Steward. Love and service
were one in the simple processes of Michael's mind. Just as he would
have leaped into fire for Steward's sake, so would he now serve Steward
in any way Steward desired. That was what love meant to him. It was all
love meant to him--service.
"Waiter!" Steward called; and, when the waiter stood close at hand: "Two
beers.--Did you get that, Killeny? _Two_ beers."
Michael squirmed in his chair, placed an impulsive paw on the table, and
impulsively flashed out his ribbon of tongue to Steward's close-bending
face.
"He will remember," Daughtry told the scow-schooner captain.
"Not if we talk," was the reply. "Now we will fool your bow-wow. I will
say that the job is yours when I smash Hanson. And you will say it is
for me to smash Hanson now. And I will say Hanson must give me reason
first to smash him. And then we will argue like two fools with mouths
full of much noise. Are you ready?"
Daughtry nodded, and thereupon ensued a loud-voiced discussion that drew
Michael's earnest attention from one talker to the other.
"I got you," Captain Jorgensen announced, as he saw the waiter
approaching with but a single schooner of beer. "The bow-wow has forgot,
if he ever remembered. He thinks you an' me is fighting. The place in
his mind for _one_ beer, and _two_, is wiped out, like a wave on the
beach wipes out the writing in the sand."
"I guess he ain't goin' to forget arithmetic no matter how much noise you
shouts," Daughtry argued aloud against his sinking spirits. "An' I ain't
goin' to butt in," he added hopefully. "You just watch 'm for himself."
The tall, schooner-glass of beer was placed before the captain, who laid
a swift, containing hand around it. And Michael, strung as a taut
string, knowing that something was expected of him, on his toes to serve,
remembered his ancient lessons on the _Makambo_, vainly looked into the
impassive face of Steward for a sign, then looked about and saw, not
_two_ glasses, but _one_ glass. So well had he learned the difference
between one and two that it came to him--how the profoundest psychologist
can no more state than can he state what thought is in itself--that there
was one glass only when two glasses had been commanded. With an abrupt
upspring, his throat half harsh with anger, he placed both forepaws on
the table and barked at the waiter.
Captain Jorgensen crashed his fist down.
"You win!" he roared. "I pay for the beer! Waiter, bring one more."
Michael looked to Steward for verification, and Steward's hand on his
head gave adequate reply.
"We try again," said the captain, very much awake and interested, with
the back of his hand wiping the beer-foam from his moustache. "Maybe he
knows one an' two. How about three? And four?"
"Just the same, Skipper. He counts up to five, and knows more than five
when it is more than five, though he don't know the figures by name after
five."
"Oh, Hanson!" Captain Jorgensen bellowed across the bar-room to the cook
of the _Howard_. "Hey, you square-head! Come and have a drink!"
Hanson came over and pulled up a chair.
"I pay for the drinks," said the captain; "but you order, Daughtry. See,
now, Hanson, this is a trick bow-wow. He can count better than you. We
are three. Daughtry is ordering three beers. The bow-wow hears three. I
hold up two fingers like this to the waiter. He brings two. The bow-wow
raises hell with the waiter. You see."
All of which came to pass, Michael blissfully unappeasable until the
order was filled properly.
"He can't count," was Hanson's conclusion. "He sees one man without
beer. That's all. He knows every man should ought to have a glass.
That's why he barks."
"Better than that," Daughtry boasted. "There are three of us. We will
order four. Then each man will have his glass, but Killeny will talk to
the waiter just the same."
True enough, now thoroughly aware of the game, Michael made outcry to the
waiter till the fourth glass was brought. By this time many men were
about the table, all wanting to buy beer and test Michael.
"Glory be," Dag Daughtry solloquized. "A funny world. Thirsty one
moment. The next moment they'd fair drown you in beer."
Several even wanted to buy Michael, offering ridiculous sums like fifteen
and twenty dollars.
"I tell you what," Captain Jorgensen muttered to Daughtry, whom he had
drawn away into a corner. "You give me that bow-wow, and I'll smash
Hanson right now, and you got the job right away--come to work in the
morning."
Into another corner the proprietor of the Pile-drivers' Home drew
Daughtry to whisper to him:
"You stick around here every night with that dog of yourn. It makes
trade. I'll give you free beer any time and fifty cents cash money a
night."
It was this proposition that started the big idea in Daughtry's mind. As
he told Michael, back in the room, while Kwaque was unlacing his shoes:
"It's this way Killeny. If you're worth fifty cents a night and free
beer to that saloon keeper, then you're worth that to me . . . and more,
my son, more. 'Cause he's lookin' for a profit. That's why he sells
beer instead of buyin' it. An', Killeny, you won't mind workin' for me,
I know. We need the money. There's Kwaque, an' Mr. Greenleaf, an'
Cocky, not even mentioning you an' me, an' we eat an awful lot. An' room-
rent's hard to get, an' jobs is harder. What d'ye say, son, to-morrow
night you an' me hustle around an' see how much coin we can gather?"
And Michael, seated on Steward's knees, eyes to eyes and nose to nose,
his jowls held in Steward's hand's wriggled and squirmed with delight,
flipping out his tongue and bobbing his tail in the air. Whatever it
was, it was good, for it was Steward who spoke.