“AFRAID?” It was only because I was so thoroughly afraid I now arose
from my seat and went toward the sick man. As for the imagined voices I
did not believe in them. Did I not know the tricks of my own fancy and
did the man think I was going to be fool enough to risk my hide for a
stranger? It is true, had I been a man of physical courage, I might,
without too great risk, have gone over to the table and snatched the
roll of bills out of the sick man’s hands. When it came right down to
it I could at the moment use such a roll of bills very handily. Had I
been a man of courage I might have gone blustering and swaggering to
the table and bluffed everyone in the place but being, as I knew I was,
a coward did the man sitting there think I was going to risk my hide
for him?
I moved slowly toward the table, all the time laughing at myself and
telling myself I was not going to do what I was at the same time
obviously doing and the bartender coming from behind the bar with a
hammer in his hand fell in behind me. I could see the hammer from a
corner of my eye. Well, he was going to hit me with it. In a moment
more my head would be crushed and, as would be quite plain to any man
of sense, I would only be getting what I deserved. What a confounded
fool! I was terribly frightened and at the same time there was a smile
on my lips. My appearance at the moment must have been disconcerting to
the men at the table.
They were apparently as great fools as myself. As I approached, the
sick man, perhaps to free himself from the others, threw the roll of
bills carelessly on the table and one of his companions put a large
hairy hand over it. Was he also afraid? All of the men were looking
intently at me and at the bartender behind me. Were they but waiting to
see my head crushed? One of them got rather hesitatingly to his feet
and doubling his fist raised it as though to strike me in the face--I
had now got within a foot of the sick man--but the blow did not descend.
Reaching down I put my arms about the sick man’s shoulder and half
raised him to his feet, the foolish smile still on my face but as I
saw he could not stand I prepared to take him in my arms. That would
make me quite helpless but I was helpless enough as it was. What did it
matter? “If I am going to be slugged I might as well be slugged doing
something,” I thought.
I lifted the man as gently as I could, placing the slender body over my
shoulder and waiting for the blows that were to descend upon me but at
that very moment the hand of the bartender reached over and snatching
the roll of bills from under the hand on the table put it in my pocket.
All was done in silence and in silence, with Alonzo Berners slung over
my shoulder, I walked to the door and to West Madison Street where
there were lights and people passing up and down. At the corner I put
him down and looking back saw the bartender standing at the door of his
establishment watching. Was he laughing? I fancied he was. And one
might also fancy he was keeping the others bluffed in the room until
I had got safely away. I stood at the corner beside the sick man, who
leaned helplessly against my legs, and waited for a cab that would take
me to a railroad station. Already I had taken letters from his pocket
and knew where he lived. He seemed unable to speak. “He will probably
die on the way and then I’ll be in a hell of a mess,” I kept saying to
myself after I had got with him into the day coach of a train.