Experience had taught him that an early lesson in discipline

and subordination saved unpleasant encounters in the future.

He also had learned that there is no better time to put a bluff

of this nature across than when the victim is suffering from

the after-effects of whiskey and a drug--mentality, vitality,

and courage are then at their lowest ebb. A brave man often

is reduced to the pitiful condition of a yellow dog when

nausea sits astride his stomach.

But the mate was not acquainted with Billy Byrne of Kelly's

gang. Billy's brain was befuddled, so that it took some time

for an idea to wriggle its way through, but his courage was all

there, and all to the good. Billy was a mucker, a hoodlum, a

gangster, a thug, a tough. When he fought, his methods would

have brought a flush of shame to the face of His Satanic

Majesty. He had hit oftener from behind than from before. He

had always taken every advantage of size and weight and

numbers that he could call to his assistance. He was an

insulter of girls and women. He was a bar-room brawler, and

a saloon-corner loafer. He was all that was dirty, and mean,

and contemptible, and cowardly in the eyes of a brave man,

and yet, notwithstanding all this, Billy Byrne was no coward.

He was what he was because of training and environment. He

knew no other methods; no other code. Whatever the meager

ethics of his kind he would have lived up to them to the

death. He never had squealed on a pal, and he never had left

a wounded friend to fall into the hands of the enemy--the

police.

Nor had he ever let a man speak to him, as the mate had

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