McGlory

“ Development seemingly proved the claim worthless, and McGlory had been surprised, while he and Matt were in New York, to receive a letter stating that a rich vein had been struck, and that the colonel was planning to sell the property at a big figure to a syndicate of New York capitalists. Random & Griggs, brokers, in Liberty Street, were the colonel’s New York agents, and the meeting of the syndicate was to be held in their office. ”

“ If anything happens to the Eye of Buddha then it's the mandarin himself who's responsible."
"And we're to hang out in the Catskill Mountains until Tsan Ti comes for the ruby!" mused McGlory, in an angry undertone; "and he's not going to come until Grattan is 'beheaded' or clapped into jail. We're liable to have a long wait. Of all the tinhorns I ever saw, or heard of, that Grattan is the sharpest of the lot. ”

“ I can’t bend wit’out breakin’ me shirt and the pants ain’t got no pockets in.”
“You look,” commented McGonagle, “like a dressed up prize-fighter. Somebody ought to slam McGlory in the jaw for makin’ that motion that we all must wear dress suits. I know I look a mess in mine.”
“Thirty-eight dress suits at a dollar a throw,” figured Casey, as he politely plucked ticket after ticket from hands extending them to him; “that’s thirty-eight plunks. Goldstine’s makin’ money and McGlory will be holdin’ him up for a comish.” ”

“ The cowboy appeared dashed.
“You might have expected that, Joe,” laughed Matt. “You didn’t think, did you, that Tibbits would go to all [14] this trouble and then leave us free to leave the house if we wanted to?”
McGlory closed the window and returned dazedly to his chair.
“Sufferin’ poorhouses!” he mumbled. “I reckon they think we’re millionaires in disguise, and that our folks will hand over a lot of money to ransom us. The laugh’s on them, and no mistake.”
“Let’s take things easy,” advised Matt, “until we can learn more about the game the gang are playing.” ”

“ There was one man in the car. As soon as the dust had settled a little, a black cap with a red button, a long queue, and a yellow blouse emerged with startling distinctness upon the gaze of the two boys.
McGlory sat in his chair as though paralyzed.
"It's Tsan Ti!" he murmured feebly, switching his eyes to Matt.
"Tsan Ti, and no mistake," answered Matt.
"First he rides a bike," said the cowboy, rapidly recovering, "and now he blows in on us at the steering wheel of a gasoline cart. He's the handiest all-around heathen I ever met up with. And look at him! ”

“ Danny Casey who worked for Contractor McGlory, and Mike McCarty, who drove a truck for Shannon, the teamster, and was considered the best-dressed young man in the ward, were promptly “braced” and gave consent.
“I’ll git another one and give Ferguson yer names,” said Goose, “an’ he’ll fix youse up with gloves and crape for yer skypieces.”
And McGonagle plunged into the house with the crowd. The prospective pall-bearers resumed their comments upon the passing throng; a pastime at which they had been interrupted.
“Here comes Kelly and his wife,” remarked McGlory. ”

“ Approaching the group at Clancy’s, he said hurriedly:
“I’m goin’ to be a pall bearer, fellas, and Larry wants five o’ youse to help. Talk quick!”
Nolan and McGlory promptly volunteered.
“That makes three,” said Goose. “Won’t youse help to carry him, Larkin?”
“Try to get somebody else,” begged Jimmie. And with a nod of his head toward the smoky grey tower from which came the doleful strokes of the bell, he added: “I don’t go there, ye know; an’ it might [73] make talk about Larry, see? Here’s Casey an’ Mike McCarty comin’ up; give ’em a brace.” ”

“ The other laughed. “You’re right, Mac,” said he; “but let me say this, again, before I go: Whatever you do, don’t have a fight in your ward. Go into your convention and find the man that’s goin’ to win—and stand good with him if we can handle him. The administration wants lots of friends next session.”
McQuirk found McGlory, dressed in his best, at the stables in Murphy’s Court, superintending the doctoring of a worn-looking horse. The contractor’s greeting was stiff and formal.
[258] “Anyone got your proxy, Alex?” asked the boss, after they had exchanged some general remarks. ”

“ Muttering under his breath, Kelly followed McGonagle down the steps, and after he had gone McGlory observed:
“That lobster’s too gay! He’s got a notion he runs this outfit.”
“Well, he’s got another t’ink,” said Murphy. “Say, [113] us people made a foxy play when we turned down the fifty dollars his old man wanted to chip in toward gittin’ the pool table.”
“’Lection’s comin’,” remarked Ferguson. “He t’ought he’d cop our support be that move.”
“He don’t git no support o’ mine,” Murphy informed them. “I ain’t for no gent that pulls on both ends o’ the string. ”

“ Of such comparisons between McGraw men who had succeeded and other university men who had failed Mr. Pound had so many at his fingers' ends as to be absolutely overwhelming. So before I had seen McGraw I was a McGraw man to the core, and my mentor, with a subtlety astonishing for him, missed no opportunity to increase my devotion. He even taught me the college yell in one of his lighter moments, and I, in turn, taught it to James that it might ring out with more volume from the barn-bridge of an evening. ”

“ McGregor felt that he had to prepare himself. He believed that he could study books and learn much from men's ideas expressed in books without being overwhelmed by their thoughts. He became a student and quit the place in the apple-warehouse to the secret relief of the little bright-eyed superintendent who had never been able to get himself up to the point of raging at this big red fellow as he had raged at the German before McGregor's time. The warehouse man felt that during the meeting on the corner before the saloon on the day McGregor began to work for him something had happened. ”

“ McGregor's heart beat so that he nearly choked. The men in the uniforms, each in himself meaning nothing, had become by their marching together all alive with meaning. Again he wanted to shout, to run down into the street and embrace them. The strength in them seemed to kiss, as with the kiss of a lover, the strength within himself and when they had passed and the disorderly jangle of voices broke out again he got on a car and went out to Edith's with his heart afire with resolution. ”

“ The pad of paper fell out of the large girl's lap and scattered its leaves about the floor. A light burned in McGregor's blue eyes. As he stood in the classroom before the startled class his head, big and red, had something of nobility about it like the head of a fine beast. His voice rumbled out of his throat and the girl looked at him, her mouth standing open.
“We go from room to room hearing talk,” began McGregor. “On the street corners downtown in the evenings and in towns and villages men talk and talk. Books are written, jaws wag. The jaws of men are loose. ”

“ But men could not forget that in all his work there rode behind Red Pierre six dauntless warriors of the mountain-desert, while McGurk had been always a single hand against the world, a veritable lone wolf. ”

“ A mighty sickness overwhelmed McGuire, and before his eyes there swam a dark mist.
He whispered: "You're Red Pierre?"
"The clothes," repeated Pierre sternly, "on the jump, McGuire."
And with a jump McGuire obeyed. His hands trembled so that he could hardly remove the scarf from the shoulders of the model, but afterward fear made his fingers supple. He lifted up the green gown; white, filmy clothes showed underneath.
There came a sharp cry from Jack: "Turn away, Pierre; turn quick and don't dare to look. I'll take care of McGuire." ”

“ Together David the quiet efficient representative of wealth and his woman child sat in the carriage on the day of McGregor's triumph. For the moment an impassable gulf seemed to separate them and with intense eyes each watched the hordes of men who massed themselves about the labour leader. At the moment McGregor seemed to have caught all men in the sweep of his movement. Business men had closed their desks, labour was exultant, writers and men given to speculation in thought walked about dreaming of the realisation of the brotherhood of man. ”

“ McGregor, as you may guess, is a Scot, whose national sense of economy seems to have spread to his uniform, in that the cap he wears covers but a third-part of his head, and his tunic (which I ought really not to call a tunic but a service jacket) appears to have exhausted itself and its material at the fourth button. ”

“ When the shield was eventually repaired and the order given to drive it just twenty-five inches ahead in order to permit the insertion of a new ring of plates, Mr. Henderson was there, as well as Laverty and McGlathery. Indeed, McGlathery was in charge of the men who were to stuff the bags and keep out the water. If you have ever seen a medium-sized red-headed Irishman when he is excited and determined, you have a good picture of McGlathery. ”

“ Are you afraid of him now?"
"I'll take my chance with any man—but McGurk—"
"He has no cross to bring him luck."
"Aye, and he has no friends for that luck to ruin. Look at Gandil, Jack, and then speak to me of the cross."
"Pierre, that first time you met you almost beat him to the draw. Oh, if I were a man, I'd—Pierre, it was to get McGurk that you rode out to the range. You've been here six years, and McGurk is still alive, and now you're ready to run from his shadow."
"Run?" he said hotly. "I swear to God that as I stand here I've no fear of death and no hope for the life ahead." ”

“ I've lived too long with the name of McGurk in my ears not to know the man. He'll never kill by stealth, but openly and man to man. I know him, damn him. He'll wait till he meets us alone, and then we'll finish as poor Gandil, there, or Patterson and Branch and Bud Mansie, all of them fallen somewhere in the mountains with the buzzards left to bury 'em. ”

“ He has had bitter disappointments, but they have never beaten him down. Had Stephen McGraw left his money and not his name to the university, the doctor's task would have been easier, for it is not the way of men to beautify another's monument. Once, I remember, a Western capitalist was persuaded to make a great gift to McGraw. He made it with conditions, and for a while our hopes blazed high and with exceeding fury. The collegiate Gothic quadrangles were within our reach, as near to us as the grapes to Tantalus. A half-million dollars was promised us if we raised a like sum within a year. ”

“ Altruism would have been McGuire’s last guess. “He ain’t no farmer,” thought the captive, “and he ain’t no con man, for sure. W’at’s his lay? You trail in, Cricket, and see how many cards he draws. You’re up against it, anyhow. You got a nickel and gallopin’ consumption, and you better lay low. Lay low and see w’at’s his game.”
At Rincon, a hundred miles from San Antonio, they left the train for a buckboard which was waiting there for Raidler. ”

“ Slimmer heard one of them say:
"My name is McGlue, sir!—William McGlue! I am a brother of the late Alexander McGlue. I picked up your paper this morning, and perceived in it an outrageous insult to my deceased relative, and I have come [Pg 118] around to demand, sir, WHAT YOU MEAN by the following infamous language:
"'The death-angel smote Alexander McGlue, And gave him protracted repose; He wore a checked shirt and a Number Nine shoe, And he had a pink wart on his nose. No doubt he is happier dwelling in space Over there on the evergreen shore. ”

“ With a slight lifting of his great shoulders McGregor sensed these things although he could not have expressed his sense of them and the hatred and contempt of men, born of his youth in the mining town, was rekindled by the sight of city men wandering afraid and bewildered through the streets of their own city. ”

“ There is you and me and there is the thing McGregor might be. We are each in our way something special. We come, people like us, to a place where there are two roads to take. I took one and McGregor has taken another. ”

“ Suppose we stand here—it's a convenient distance apart—and wait with our arms folded for the next time the white horse paws the rocks, because when I kill you, McGurk, I want you to die knowing that another man was faster on the draw and straighter with his bullets than you are. D'you see?"
He could not have spoken with a more formal politeness if he had been asking the other to pass first through the door of a dining-room. The wonder of McGurk grew and the sweat on his forehead seemed to be spreading a chill through his entire body. He said: "I see. You trust all to the cross, eh, Pierre? ”

“ McGilveray had found a man after his own heart. "Sing a song a-sixpence," said he, "what sort's that for a gintleman an' a corporal, too? Feel in me trousies pocket," said he, "which is fur me frinds for iver." McGilveray had now hopes of getting free, but if he had not taken a fancy to "me baby corporal," as he called the Frenchman, he would have made escape or release impossible, by insulting him and every one of them as quick as winking. ”

“ McLoughlin, one of the most urbane gentlemen in the world, moreover really liked Captain Wyeth, and was sorry to see him driven to the wall. He took his hand as a father would.
"Business is business, Mr. Wyeth. I like your open, manly way. I find you fair in contracts. I believe you to be a gentleman and an honest man. You support morality and encourage industry. If you will come over to us Wyeth, yourself to the fort join us then I, myself, will forward your credentials to the house in London by the next express. ”