he could not confess this to the doggish and intrepid Bulger.
There were other weaknesses he had to cloak. Bulger proffered cigarettes from a silver case at their first meeting. Bean declined.
"Doctor's orders," said he.
"Nerves?" suggested Bulger, expertly.
"Heart—gets me something fierce."
"Come in here to Tommy's and take a bracer," now suggested the hospitable Bulger. But again the physician had been obdurate.
"Won't let me touch a thing—liver," said Bean. "Got to be careful of a breakdown."
"Tough," said Bulger. "Man needs a certain amount of it, down here in the street. Course, a guy can't sop it up, like you see some do. Other night, now—gang of us out, y'understand—come too fast for your Uncle Cuthbert. Say, goin' up those stairs where I live I cert'n'ly must 'a' sounded like a well-known clubman gettin' home from an Elks' banquet. Head, next A. M?—ask me, ask me! Nothing of the kind! Don't I show up with a toothache and con old Tully into a day off at the dentist's to have the bridgework tooled up. Ask me was I at the dentist's? Wow! Not!—little old William J. Turkish bath for mine!"
Bean was moved to raw envy. But he knew himself too well. The specialist he professed to have consulted had put a ban upon the simplest recreations. Otherwise how could he with any grace have declined those repeated invitations of
