As Barney made his way toward a harbor of refreshment he wondered
about Old Jimmie--not in the manner Larry had wondered about a father
bringing his daughter up into crooked ways--but he wondered what kind
of a man beneath his shrewd, yielding, placating manner Old Jimmie
really was, how far he was to be trusted, whether he was in this game
on the level or whether he was playing some very secret hand of his
own. Though he had known and worked with Old Jimmie for years, Barney
had never been admitted to the inner chambers of the older man's
character. He sensed that there were hidden rooms and twisting
passages; and of this much he was certain, that Old Jimmie was sly and
saturnine.
Well, he would be on guard that Old Jimmie didn't put anything over on
your obliging servant, Barney Palmer!
This was the era of legal prohibition, but thus far Barney had not
been severely discommoded by the action of the representatives of
America's free institutions in Washington, for Barney knew his New
York. In an ex-saloon on Sixth Avenue, which nominally sold only the
soft drinks permitted by the wise men of the Capital, Barney leaned at
his ease upon the bar and remarked: "Give me some of the real stuff,
Tim, and forget that eye-dropper the boss bought you last week.
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