Silas scowled. Ted Ramsay hastily turned to his bottles. The long grey moustache sweeping away from the mouth of this elder Breen seemed to quiver. He hitched his trousers although his great waist was belted. To the beltwas attached small pouches containing matches, tobacco plug, clasp-knife, and an empty revolver holster, for it is unlawful to bring small arms into the settlements of the North-West.

“Bleedin’corkers, ain’t they?” murmured ’Un admiringly. “Me old mate, Paddy the Bastard, was as big as Silas Breen. Fight! That time Paddy and Silas fought for a week, they started in this bar on aToosdee night, went all round town and ended up again in the bar on the followingMondee morning. Andme and Ezra Breencaperin ’ after them with tucker and whisky to keep ’emgoing.”

“Where was the policeman?” asked the curious Bony, his bright blue eyes filled with laughter.

“The john! Fellerbe the name ofGartside. What could he do, d’you reckon, with two Irishmen like Silas? Just let ’emalone and go on with his job. Only time he got a bit anxious was when Silas and Paddy was looking like fighting all the way through the police station from the front to the back. Me and Ezra had a hell of a job to steer ’emclear!”

“Who won?”

“Neither. Silas began to laugh on theMondee morning, and that finished Paddy. You oughta have seen ’emthen. Butcher’s shops theywas .”

Two men entered, and’Un broke off to greet them. They shouted to theBreens and Jasper roared at the licensee. There was a pile of treasury notes between the brothers. Voices became louder, and Ramsay placed bottles of beer on the counter instead of refilling glasses. The emaciated postmaster gripped a bottle of rum in his left hand and seldom put down the glass held in his right, and whenever Bony took a sip from his glass ’Un hospitably filled it. More men joined the company, and Bony eased on the beer.

Then Silas Breen was yelling for a chair and demanding to know what the hell the place was coming to with no chair for a gent to sit on.’Un was dispatched for the veranda chair, and great was the struggle to pass it from the door through the crush to where Jasper stood. Silas placed the chair for his brother, and on Jasper’s face was anguish as he relaxed into it. That a Breen should be so weak!