"The usual price. A few pennies a mug," Ephraim said. "The war is over. Remember? And with the best imported island rum selling wholesale at twenty cents a gallon--"
Mine Host picked up the shot glass and returned the bill to the bar. "You win. You've had enough, pal. What do you want to do, cost me my license? Go ahead. Like a good fellow. Scram."
He emphasized the advice by putting the palm of his hand in Ephraim's face, pushing him toward the door. It was a mistake. Reaching across the bar, Ephraim snaked Mine Host out from behind it and was starting to shake some civility into the publican when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"Drunk and disorderly, eh?" a second voice added.
The newcomers were big men, men who carried themselves with the unmistakable air of authority. He attempted to explain and one of them held his arms while the other man searched him and found the Spanish pistol.
"Oh. Carrying a heater, eh? That happens to be against the law, chum."
"Ha," Ephraim laughed at him. "Also ho." He quoted from memory Article II of the amendments Mr. Henry had read him in the Pig and Whistle:
"'A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed'."
"Now he's a militia," the plain-clothes man said.
Ephraim sat on the bunk in his cell, deflated. This was a fine resurrection for a member of the First Congress.
"Cheer up," a voice from the upper bunk consoled. "The worst they can do is burn you." He offered Ephraim a paper spill of tobacco. "The name is Silovitz."
"Alimony," the other man sighed. "That is the non-payment thereof."
The word was new to Ephraim. He asked Silovitz to explain. "But that's illegal, archaic. You can't be jailed for debt."
His cell mate lighted a cigarette. "No. Of course not. Right now I'm sitting in the Stork Club buying Linda Darnell a drink." He studied Ephraim's face. "Say, I've been wondering who you look like. I make you now. You look like the statue of Nathan Hale the D.A.R. erected in Central Park."
"It's a family resemblance," Ephraim said. "Nat was a second cousin. They hung him in '76, the same year I went into the Army."
Silovitz nodded approval. "That's a good yarn. Stick to it. The wife of the judge you'll probably draw is an ardent D.A.R. But if I were you I'd move my war record up a bit and remove a few more cousins between myself and Nathan."