With head bound in a bloody rag, and face of a waxy yellow hue, he
staggered limply out of one of the rear rooms between Corson and Owens.
"Brace up, me boy! You're worth ten dead men," said the policeman
encouragingly. "That's right! you'll be yourself in a jiffy."
Barkhouse was soon propped up on the lounge in the guard-room, and with
a few sips of whisky and a fresh bandage began to look like a more
hopeful case.
"'Twas a nasty cut," said one of the men sympathetically.
"How did you get it?" I asked.
"I don't rightly know," said Barkhouse faintly. "'Twas the night you
went to Mother Borton's last week. After I leaves you, I walks down a
piece towards the bay, and as I gets about to Drumm Street, I guess, a
fellow comes along as I takes to be a sailor half-loaded. 'Hello,
mate,' he says, a-trying to steady himself, 'what time did you say it
was?' 'I didn't say,' says I, for I was too fly to take out my watch,
even if it is a nickel-plater, for how could he tell what it was in the
dark? and it's good for a dozen drinks at any water-front saloon.
'Well, what do you make it?' he says; and as I was trying to reckon
whether it was nearer twelve or one o'clock, he lurches up agin' me and
grabs my arms as if to steady himself. Then three or four fellows jumps
from behind a lot of packing-boxes there, and grabs me. I makes a fight
for it, and gives one yell, and the next I knows I was in a dark room
here with the sorest head in San Francisco.
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