Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 2 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

SANNIGAN’S JAG. ‘“ No,” he retorted, ‘‘ I ain’t. You'd best go home, Pat.” “ A’ right,” agreed Sannigan. ‘“ Just ’s soon ’s I put this roll in the bank. é. But on the threshold of the Millbury Savings he decided he would go in after he had got just a teeny-weeny nip. So he strayed up and down, buttonholing first one crony then another. The absence of kick in Ben Crabb’s innecuous stuff had merely stimulated a long-forgotten thirst. Fred Collins was dry, and blamed glad of it. Black Dan Moshier had nothing to offer. Harry Peterson told Sannigan to hustle home while it was-yet time. Every- body was full of good advice. Sannigan realized keenly that Ontario was a desert. Just then a complete stranger beckoned him to one side. _He was a dark man with a furtive eye. “What you-.ought to do,” advised the furtive-eyed stranger, “is to go fishing. I got a fishing-line I'll sell you for twenty dollars. You fish in the pond back of the slaughter-house and you'll catch a whale.” He winked. Sannigan understood. He peeled a twenty-dollar bill from the top of his wad, and took the meager line. He found his way back to the pond, and fished along the edges. Betimes he felt a tug. He pulled hard, and a black bottle emerged, attached to a skein of tangled wire. To remove the cork was the work of an instant. Sannigan took one pull—two pulls— three—and a huge, engulfing, soul-satisfy- ing swig to cap the climax. ® Then came the jag. IL. To this day, Millbury folks still speak with awe of Sannigan’s immortal jag. In all Millbury’s history never had such a jag been recorded. But in all Millbury’s history, never had such miraculous contact been established as when the insides of the “ whale” went trickling and tumbling down Sannigan’s throat. It was not whisky, that liquor; it was not gin; it was nothing ever before known in the calendar of Bacchus. Product of a moonshine still, concocted by an untaught 179 genius, of ingredients never before mob- ilized for the serviee of thirsty man, it pos- sessed a perfection of kick to which the _ greatest distillers in all the centuries had aspired in vain. It was the outstanding accidental achievement of ten thousand years. Add the further accident that it fell into the eager hands and seeped and trickled and ponred down the thirsty throat of Pat- rick Sannigan. Sannigan’s thirst grew by what it fed on. He sipped, he gulped, he swallowed in ever- increasing drafts—he could not down the heavenly nectar fast enough. He stood up. His head touched the clouds, his feet trod an airy carpet. “Hey, Dandy Curle,” he bellowed. ‘Come here and drown your sorrows.” No response. Dandy was half a mile away. Sannigan sought him. He thought, too, of Ben Crabb. ‘Native wine! Phew!” he exclaimed. Then he raised his voice in accents of pure joy. ‘I’m a prohibitionist!” yelled Sanni- gan. “Pin a white ribbon on me, Rose Marie. Never got a kick like that under license! Hooray for the Camel Corps!” As he turned mto Main Street, a red fire- alarm box caught Sannigan’s eye. He pulled/the handle. Three minutes later the fire department came thundering down the street, and gazed eagerly about, seeking direction. But San- nigan, headed the opposite way, had passed them. He sought another fire alarm, and found the doors of the fire-hall invitingly open. He ambled in. He petted the-spare horse, and tried to give it a drink. The horse kicked, and Sannigan desisted. But he found the fire chief’s pipe, filled it from the assistant foreman’s tobacco pouch, lit up—and took another swig. - People gazed askance at Sannigan as, puffing at the fire chief’s pipe, and bran- dishing his black bottle, he marched gaily down the middle of Main Street singing “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary.” It was, he decided. He must have a car. He climbed into a flivver parked at the curb, and pushed first one lever, then an- other. Then he thought of the self-starter. To his bewilderment the car began to back. CORNICLOOOKS (C@)