You are not to assume that I went about these boxing gymnastics because of any savageries or blood-hunger dominant in my breast, or was moved solely of that instinct by which the game-cock fights. I went to my fist-studies as the result of thought and calculation. In my slow way I had noted how those henchmen of the inner circle who surrounded Big Kennedy – those who were near to him, and upon whom he most relied, were wholly valued by him for the two matters of force of fist and that fidelity which asks no question. Even a thicker intellect than mine would have seen that to succeed as I proposed, I must be the gladiator. Wherefore, I boxed and wrestled and perfected my muscles; also as corollary I avoided drink and tobacco as I would two poisons.
And Big Kennedy, who had a little of his eye on me most of the time, was so good as to approve. He applauded my refusal of alcohol and tobacco. And he indorsed my determination to be a boxer.
“A man who can take care of himself with his hands,” said he, “an’ who never lets whisky fool him or steal his head, can go far in this game of politics. An’ it’s a pretty good game at that, is politics, and can be brought to pay like a bank.”
It chanced that I met with an adventure which added to my celebration in a way I could have wished. I was set upon by a drunken fellow – a stranger. He was an invader, bent upon mischief and came from an adjacent and a rival ward. I had offered no provocation; why he selected me to be his victim and whether it were accident or design I cannot say. Possibly I was pointed out to this drinking Hotspur as one from whose conquest honor would flow; perhaps some enemy of the pattern of Sheeny Joe had set him to it. All I know is that without challenge given, or the least offer of warning, the creature bore down upon me, whirling his fists like flails.
“You’re the party I’m lookin’ for!” was all he said.
In the mix-up to follow, and which I had neither time to consider nor avoid, the visitor from that other ward was fully and indubitably beaten. This was so evident that he himself admitted it when at the finish of hostilities certain Samaritans gave him strong drink as a restorative. It developed also that my assailant, in a shadowy subdued way, was a kind of prizefighter, and by his own tribe deemed invincible. My victory, therefore, made a noise in immediate circles; and I should say it saved me from a deal of trouble and later strife, since it served to place me in a class above the common. There came few so drunk or so bold as to ask for trouble with me, and I found that this casual battle – safe, too, because my prizefighter was too drunk to be dangerous – had brought me a wealth of peace.
There dawned a day when Big Kennedy gave me a decisive mark of his esteem. He presented me to his father. The elder Kennedy, white-haired and furrowed of age, was known as “Old Mike.” He was a personage of gravity and power, since his was the only voice in that region to which Big Kennedy would yield. Wherefore to be of “Old Mike’s” acquaintance shone in one’s favor like a title of knighthood.
Big Kennedy’s presentation speech, when he led me before his father, was characteristic and peculiar. Old Mike was in the shadow of his front porch, while three or four oldsters of the neighborhood, like a council or a little court about a monarch, and all smoking short clay pipes, were sitting about him.
“Here’s a pup,” cried Big Kennedy, with his hand on my shoulder, “I want you to look over. He’s a great pup and ought to make a great dog.”
Old Mike glanced at me out of his twinkling gray eyes. After a moment he said, addressing me:
“Come ag’in.”
That was all I had from Old Mike that journey.
Big Kennedy it should be said was a model for all sons. He kept his father in ease and comfort in a house of his own. He was prone to have Old Mike’s advice, particularly if what he proposed were a step novel or one dangerous in its policy, and he never went to anything in the face of Old Mike’s word. It wasn’t deference, it was faith; Big Kennedy believed in the wisdom of Old Mike and relied upon it with a confidence that was implicit. I shall have more to tell of Old Mike as my story unrolls to the eye. If Big Kennedy were my example, Old Mike should be called my mentor. Taking the cue from Big Kennedy, I came to own for Old Mike that veneration which the youths of Ancient Greece felt for their oracles, and as utterly accepted either his argument or conclusion. It stood no wonder that I was impressed and played upon by this honor of an introduction to Old Mike. To bring you before Old Mike and name you for his consideration was the extremest proof of Big Kennedy’s regard. As I’ve said, it glittered on one like the chain and spurs of knighthood, and the fact of it gave me a pedestal among my fellows.
After my bout with that erring one who came out of his own ward to sup grief at my hands, there began to collect about me a coterie of halfway bruisers. This circle – and our enemies were quick to bestow upon it the epithet of “gang” – never had formal organization. And while the members were of the rougher sort, and each a man of his hands, the argument of its coming together was not so much aggression as protection.
The town forty years ago was not a theater of peace and lambs’-wool safety. One’s hand must keep one’s head, and a stout arm, backed by a stout heart, traveled far. To leave one’s own ward, or even the neighborhood where one lived, was to invite attack. In an alien ward, one would be set upon and beaten to rags before one traveled a mile. If one of the enemy were not equal to the business, others would lend a hand. Whether it required one or two or three or twenty, the interloper was fated to heir a drubbing. If his bones were not broken, he was looked upon as fortunate, while those who had undertaken to correct his wanderings went despised as bunglers who had slighted a task.
Now and then a war-party would make a sortie from their own region to break windows and heads in the country of an enemy. Such hands often descended upon the domain of Big Kennedy, and it was a notion of defense against these Goths which brought the militant spirits I have mentioned to my shoulder. It was we who must meet them, when they would make desolate our territory. The police were of no use; they either walked the other way in a spirit of cautious neutrality, or were driven into hiding with a shower of stones.
By the common tongue, this coterie to collect at my back was named the “Tin Whistle Gang.” Each member carried a whistle as part of his pocket furniture. These were made of uniform pattern, and the same keen note, like the screech of a hawk, was common to all.
The screaming fife-like song would bring out the Tin Whistles as hotly bent for action as a colony of wasps. In those days, when might was right, the sound of these whistles was a storm signal. Quiet people shut their doors and drew their bolts, while apothecaries made ready to sell lint and plasters.
It is required that I speak of the Tin Whistles in this place. I was now for the first time to be called into political activity by Big Kennedy. I was eighteen, and of a sober, steady, confident cast, and trustworthy in a wordless way. Because I was sober of face and one not given to talk or to laughter, men looked on me as five years better than my age; I think these characteristics even imposed on Big Kennedy himself, for he dealt with me as though I were a man full grown.
It was in the height of a campaign. Two days before the balloting, Big Kennedy sent for me. There was a room to the rear of his bar. This room was a holy of holies; no one entered there who was not established in the confidence of Big Kennedy. It was a greater distinction even than the acquaintance of Old Mike. Knowing these things, my brow flushed when Big Kennedy led me into this sanctum of his policies.
“Now, if I didn’t trust you,” said Big Kennedy, looking me hard in the eye, “if I didn’t trust you, you’d be t’other side of that door.” I said nothing; I had found that silence pleased Big Kennedy, and I learned early to keep