“Why don’t you get your beer elsewhere then?”

“Why, it’s Edelhein put me in there to sell his stuff, an’ he’d never let me sell anythin’ else.”

“Then Edelhein is really the principal, and you are only put in to keep him out of sight?”

“That’s it”

“And you have put no money in yourself?”

“Divil a cent.”

“Then why doesn’t he pay the fine?”

“He says Oi have no business to be afther bein’ fined.  As if any one sellin’ his beer could help bein’ fined!”

“How is that?” said Peter, inferring that selling poor beer was a finable offence, yet ignorant of the statute.

“Why yez see, sir, the b’ys don’t like that beer—­an’ sensible they are—­so they go to other places, an’ don’t come to my place.”

“But that doesn’t explain your fines.”

“Av course it does.  Shure, if the boys don’t come to my place, it’s little Oi can do at the primary, an’ so it’s no pull Oi have in politics, to get the perlice an’ the joodges to be easy wid me, like they are to the rest.”

Peter studied his blank wall a bit.

“Shure, if it’s good beer Oi had,” continued Moriarty, “Oi’d be afther beatin’ them all, for Oi was always popular wid the b’ys, on account of my usin’ my fists so fine.”

Peter smiled.  “Why don’t you go into something else?” he asked.

“Well, there’s mother and the three childers to be supported, an’ then Oi’d lose my influence at the primary.”

“What kind of beer does Mr. Bohlmann make?” asked Peter, somewhat irrelevantly.

“Ah,” said Moriarty, “that’s the fine honest beer!  There’s never anythin’ wrong wid his.  An’ he treats his keepers fair.  Lets them do as they want about keepin’ open Sundays, an’ never squeezes a man when he’s down on his luck.”

Peter looked at his wall again.  Peter was learning something.

“Supposing,” he asked, “I was able to get your fine remitted, and that clause struck out of the lease.  Would you open on Sunday?”

“Divil a bit.”

“When must you pay the fine?”

“Oi’m out on bail till to-morrow, sir.”

“Then leave these papers with me, and come in about this time.”

Peter studied his wall for a bit after his new client was gone.  He did not like either saloon-keepers or law-breakers, but this case seemed to him to have—­to have—­extenuating circumstances.  His cogitations finally resulted in his going to Justice Gallagher’s court.  He found the judge rather curt.

“He’s been up here three times in as many months, and I intend to make an example of him.”

“But why is only he arrested, when every saloon keeper in the neighborhood does the same thing?”

“Now, sir,” said the judge, “don’t waste any more of my time.  What’s the next case?”

A look we have mentioned once or twice came into Peter’s face.  He started to leave the court, but encountered at the door one of the policemen whom he was “friends with,” according to the children, which meant that they had chatted sometimes in the “angle.”