it had proposed a song by Malachi. Now, in his younger days, Malachi had been a great lad for song, and many a shindig in Bridgeport had he gladdened with his voice, but in the latter years it was seldom that he could be induced to exercise it. He would always plead his age and his flesh, and such was the solemnity of manner that had grown upon him with the years, that men in their sober hours never had the temerity to suggest anything so unbecoming his dignity. But on this night, heated by wine, and feeling, though they did not of course analyze the feeling, that so many improprieties had been committed that one more could not noticeably swell the score, they had been emboldened to demand a song. Malachi, standing by his own bar in his long frock coat and square-crowned stiff hat, twiddling his whisky glass just as if he were a casual visitor there, had resolutely shaken his head. But at two o'clock in the morning he had suddenly ordered the drinks for the house, and then, when the gang had given over all hope of his singing, save, perhaps, one or two who, deeper in their cups than the rest, had monotonously persisted in the invitation, he had spontaneously burst forth:
