The Mission of Poubalov — page 190: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

186 AT ONE O'CLOCK A, M. hadn’t spoke, for I would ’a’ spoke to him, an’ it m: a’ been all the same, but 1 was that mad all of a sudde that I let the beer fly in his face. With that he jumped me an’ we had a fine fight, till the bartenders came re an’ chucked us both into the street. They was a polic near by, so we quit fightin,’ an’ went to another where we had a drink an’ got friendly. He was alre pretty full, miss, an’ I was as sober as I am now, an’ af three or four more drinks he got to talkin’ confid about that wheel.”’ Clara was on the qui vive with anxiety to knowl what had occurred between Mike and his acquaintai while at the same time she felt repugnance to basing a _ serious efforts upon the words of a drunken man, a sw as distrust as to the value of a clew from such a but she felt, too, that she could stop at nothing in t emergency that confronted her. So she asked, ‘‘Whz he say, Michael?”’ ‘*First off he was for denyin’ that he had anythin’ t with it; but bymeby, seein’ as I wasn’t mad any mo: . enjoyin’ the trick of it himself, he told me he done it, ‘ I know what became of your man,’ says he. ‘An’ wl says I. With that, though, he shut up. He winked his ¢ an’ talked about somethin’ else, an’ I, not thinkin’ caring very much at the time, didn’t ask —— quest But this mornin’ I was thinkin’ it over, an’ wonderi what became of th’ gentleman, an’ thinkin’ there be someshing crooked, or they wouldn’t ’a’ took me wl off, an’ so I told me boss an’ he told me to tell you.” — “It was very kind of you both,’’ said Clara grateful, | fearful that the point of most importance had beens ‘Was his name Billings?’’ ‘‘No’m, ‘twas Patterson. Him an’ me was togeth some time after the fight, an’ { walked along home him.’ ‘*You know where he lives then?’’ ‘Not exactly, miss, but I could go pretty near 1 You see, we was goin’ along Washington Sixess. so > =