"Will you have a drink with me?" Luke inquired of the derelict beside him.
"Sure," said he, and Luke noticed that, though he did not cough, his voice was hoarse.
"And perhaps your friend would have one?" Luke suggested.
"The—the one that spoke to me when I came in."
"Who? That skirt? I never saw her before in my life."
Their drinks came, and the men drank for a while in silence.
"What’s _your_ graft?" asked the man presently.
"I’m a lawyer," said Luke. He was first proud of the answer and then ashamed of himself for being proud of it.
The man looked at him dreamily through watering eyes.
"Quit yer kiddin’," he presently remarked.
"Well, I’m a bum," said the man. He tilted up his bristled chin; his seamed throat swelled; sounds that, because they were not speech, Luke took to be song, came from his throat. He sang:
"The Spring has came, I’m just out o’ jail; I haven’t any money an’ I haven’t any bail! _Hall_eyloolyah, I’m a bum—bum! Halleyloolyah, bum again! Halleyloolyah, give——"
He stopped abruptly. "I’m sorry for _you_," he said.
"Why?" asked Luke. He thought the sentiment of that song as horrible as the creature that sang it.
"Because you’re all tied up with everything. But me—there ain’t nothin’ _can_ tie me. You fellers is in jail all the time an’ don’t know it; I’m only in jail when you fellers can ketch me and put me there."
Luke realized that he had found a philosopher who, however mistaken in his deductions, had seen quite as much of the world as Jack Porcellis. He attempted the vernacular.
"Naw," he said. "It’s a bum joint, but it ain’t a bums’ joint. Too much class for me. This bunch"—he included the entire company with a wide gesture—"is all in the same jail with you. If they wasn’t here, you’d be where I am."
"I suppose they do give us lawyers cases," Luke granted; "but they seem to get around the laws pretty frequently: they’re wide open to-night."
"Sure they are. See that?" The other man indicated the waiter, who was disappearing into the dark vestibule with two drinks on his tray. "Them’s for the cop on this beat, an’ a vice-squad cop ’at’s with him. I’m wise. I seen Tony (that’s the boss o’ this joint) slip them a fifty-dollar bill last Sunday—protection money."
"But some day," urged Luke, who was trying to plumb the dark pool that was this man’s mind, "the Mayor or the District-Attorney will get proof of that sort of thing—some day when the Mayor and the District-Attorney are honest men——"