the boy safe, but acutely conscious of the licking he was going to receive.
Svangvsk slipped to the floor, leaned his head against Joe’s and made a noise like a clucking hen. Joe nodded and whistled loudly through his nostrils, putting to shame the knowledge of Sloviski, of the delicatessen.
John Byrnes walked up to Svangvsk, who grinned, expecting to be kicked. Byrnes gripped the outlander so strongly by the hand that Demetre grinned anyhow, conceiving it to be a new form of punishment.
“The heathen rides like a Cossack,” remarked a fireman who had seen a Wild West show—“they’re the greatest riders in the world.”
The word seemed to electrify Svankvsk. He grinned wider than ever.
“Yas—yas—me Cossack,” he spluttered, striking his chest.
‘‘Cossack!” repeated John Byrnes, thoughtfully, “ain’t that a kind of a Russian?”
“They’re one of the Russian tribes, sure,” said the desk man, who read books between fire alarms.
Just then Alderman Foley, who was on his way home and did not know of the runaway, stopped at the door of the engine-house and called to Byrnes:
“Hello there, Jimmy, me boy—how’s the war coming along? Japs still got the bear on the trot, have they?”
[148]
