"I'LL FIGHT HIM FOR THIS MAN!"
"It's wonderfully kind of you!" breathed the woman, gratefully.
"But it really won't do any good. When a man has begun to drink
nothing can reclaim him from it. My only hope is to be able to
have a talk with Tom when his money is gone."
"Of course if you dislike to have us try, Mrs. Drake-----" Dick
began.
"I don't dislike to have you try!" cried the woman, quickly.
"All I am thinking about is the hopelessness of your undertaking.
You simply can't get Tom out of Miller's to-night until the owner
of that awful place turns him out at closing time. I know! This
has happened before."
Dick stood in an uncertain attitude, his cap in hand. The appealing
face of the child, looking eagerly up at him, made him wish with
all his heart to try to do a good act here, yet he couldn't think
of going on such an errand without the young wife's permission.
"Let him go, mama," urged the child. "He'll bring papa back."
Dick looked questioningly at the woman.
"All right, then, go," she acquiesced. "Oh, I hope you have good
luck, and that you don't make Tom ugly, either. I'll say, for
him, that he has never been ugly yet."
"Mrs. Drake, we all four accept your commission---or permission,
whichever it is," replied Dick, bowing. "We'll try to use tact
and judgment, and we'll try to bring Mr. Drake back with us."
Dick asked a few questions as to where Miller's place might be
found. Then he set off, he and his chums walking abreast.
"Bring him back!" Mollie said plaintively. "Then mama won't cry,
and I won't, either."
"I feel like a fool!" muttered Tom Reade, when they were out of
earshot of the waiting mother and child.
"If you don't like the undertaking, you might keep in the background,"
Dick suggested.
"It's likely I'd back out of anything that's moving, isn't it?"
Reade demanded, offended. "I don't mind any disagreeable business
that we may run into. But I feel like a fool when I think of
the message we'll have to take back to that poor woman and baby."
"Tom Drake will deliver the message to them," replied Dick, firmly.
"If he's sober even now," murmured Danny Grin, uneasily.
"I'm strong for the task!" declared Dave Darrin, with enthusiasm.
"So would I be," Tom defended himself, "if I thought that even
a night of fighting would result in anything like success. But-----"
"Better stop right here, then," Prescott, suggested, smiling earnestly.
But neither of Dick's companions stopped.
They were walking briskly, now. As they had been told, Miller's
was the first place on the right hand side, where the business
street of Fenton began. It had been a tavern in the old days,
and was still a big and roomy structure.
Yet there was no mistaking the room in which the object of their
quest was to be found. The door of the saloon opened repeatedly
while the boys stood regarding the place.
Dick stepped over to a man who had just come out.
"Is Tom Drake in there?" Dick asked.
"Yes."
"Is he sober?" Dick pressed.
"Yes; so far," answered the man.
"Will you do me a great favor? Just step inside and tell him
that there is a man outside who wants to see him. Just tell him
that, and nothing more."
"Are you from Drake's wife?" asked the man, looking Dick over
shrewdly.
"Yes," Dick admitted, candidly.
"I'll do it," nodded the man. "Drake has been making a fool of
himself. He'll go to pieces and find himself without a job before
the year is out. You wait here. I'll find a way to coax him
out for you."
Soon the door opened again, and there came out Prescott's messenger
followed by a clean-cut, well-built young man of not more than
twenty-eight years of age.
"There's the young man who says he wants to see you," the citizen
explained, pointing to Dick.
Tom Drake walked steadily enough. He certainly was not yet much
under the influence of liquor.
"You wanted to see me?" he asked, looking somewhat puzzled as
he eyed young Prescott.
"Yes," Dick admitted.
"What about?"
"Will you take a short walk with me," Dick went on, "and I'll
explain my business to you."
"I don't believe I can take a walk with you," Drake answered.
"I'm with some friends in there."
He nodded over his shoulder at the door through which he had just
come.
"But my business is of a great deal of importance," Dick went on.
"Can't you see me to-morrow?" asked Drake, eager to get back to
his companions.
"To-morrow will be altogether too late," Dick replied.
"Then state your business now."
"I'd much rather explain it you as you walk with me," Prescott
urged, earnestly.
"Are---are you from the building loan people?" asked Tom Drake,
suddenly.
"No, I am not from them," Prescott replied, then added, truthfully
enough: "But it's partly about that building loan matter that
I wish to talk with you."
"Who sent you here?" asked Drake, half-suspiciously.
"A child," Dick replied. "At least, it was a child's face that
gave me the resolution to come here and have a few words with you."
"A child?" repeated Drake. "What child?"
"Yours."
"A child?" echoed the young man. "Mine? Do you mean Mollie?"
"Yes," Dick went on, rapidly. "The child wanted to come here
herself to get you, and I came in her stead. It was better that
I should come than that little tot. Don't you think so?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand you," returned Tom Drake, beginning
to look offended.
"Mr. Drake, do you know that your wife and child are all dressed
up---in their prettiest white gowns, waiting for you to come
back to bring them into town to-night for the promised treat?
Don't you understand the pain that you're giving them by showing
that you prefer a lot of red-nosed loafers in Miller's to your
own wife and child? The unhappiness that you're causing them
to-night isn't a circumstance to all the misery that you're piling
up for them in the years to come. Switch off! Switch off, while
you're yet man enough to be able to do it! Won't you do it---please?
You must know just how happy that little kid will be when she
sees you come swinging down the street to bring her and her mother
into town. You know how that little tot's eyes will shine. Can't
you hear her saying, `Here's papa! He's come.' Isn't that baby
worth a twenty-mile walk for any man to see when he knows she's
his own kiddie and waiting for him? Come along, now; they're
both waiting for you; they will be the happiest pair you've seen
in a long time."
"I don't know but I will toddle along home," said Drake, rather
shame-facedly. "I---I didn't realize how time was slipping by.
Yes; I guess I'll go home. Much obliged to you for letting me
know the time."
But at that moment the door opened, and a voice called out:
"Drake! Oh, Drake. Come here; we want you."
"Can't, now," the young man called back. "I'm due at home."
"Home?" came in two or three jeering voices.
Then several men came out of the saloon, laughing boisterously.
"Come back, Drake! We can't let you slip off like that. You're
too good a fellow to play the sneak with us. Come on back!"
"I---I tell you, I'm due at home," insisted Drake, though he spoke
more weakly.
"Hey! Here's Drake---says he's going to slip home on us!" called
one of the tormentors.
More men came out of the place, some of them staggering. With
the new arrivals came one whom Dick and his friends rightly guessed
to be Miller---a thickset man, with swaggering manner, insolent
expression and rough voice.
"What's this about your going home, Drake?" demanded one of the
new arrivals.
"I---I really ought to go home," Drake tried to explain.
"Cut that out," ordered Miller roughly. "You're booked to spend
the evening with us, and the evening has hardly begun."
"I promised this young fellow I'd go home," said Drake slowly,
"so I guess I will."
"And what has this young feller got to say or do about it?" demanded
Miller angrily, as He pushed his way to Drake's side, then glared
at Dick Prescott.
"And what have you got to say about his not going home?" Dick
asked hotly. "Isn't this a free country, where a man may go
home when he chooses?"
"It's a free country, and a man has a right to spend his evening
in my place when he's invited," Miller asserted roughly.
"Yes; your invitation will hold until his month's pay is gone
from his pocket," Dick flashed back. "That's all you want. Drake
has sense enough to see that, and he's leaving you."
"He isn't going home for three hours yet, or anywhere else!" snorted
Miller, whose breath proclaimed the fact that he had been using
some of his own goods.
Dick laughed contemptuously as he turned to Tom Drake with:
"You see! That fellow thinks he can give you your orders. That
fellow begins to believe that he owns you already."
"Who are you calling 'that feller'?" demanded Miller, dropping
a heavy hand on Dick's shoulder.
"I referred to you," replied Prescott, pushing the man's hand
from his shoulder.
"If you get too funny with me I'll hit you a crack that will carry
your head off with it!" snarled the saloon keeper.
"Pshaw!" Prescott answered cuttingly. "You aren't big enough,
or man enough, either!"
"What's that?"
Miller aimed a vicious, open-hand blow at young Prescott's face.
It didn't land, but, instead, Dick's right hand went up smack!
against the fellow's cheek.
"Hang your impudence!" roared Miller, angrily. "I'll pay you
for that! I'll teach you!"
He made a rush at Dick, but two men who had been attracted by
the commotion jumped in between them.
"Hold on, Miller!" objected one of these passers-by. "You can't
pummel a boy!"
"I'll make him howl for hitting me!" roared Miller, doubling his
big, powerful fists. "Get out of my way, or I'll run over you!"
"Get out of his way, please!" cried Dick suddenly. "Let Miller
at me, if he wants. I'm willing to fight him. I'll fight him
for Tom Drake's right to be a man!"