“He looks to me,” chimed in the black haired brother, “like a feller that might be taught something right here in Pale Annie’s barroom.  Anyway, he’s got room at his table for two more.”

So saying the two swallowed their drinks and rumbled casually down the length of the room until they came to the table where Mac Strann sat.  Haw-Haw Langley followed at a discreet distance and came within earshot to hear the deep voice of Mac Strann rumbling:  “Sorry, gents, but that chair is took.”

The black-haired man sank into the indicated chair.

“You’re right,” he announced calmly.  “Anybody could see with half an eye that you ain’t a fool.  It’s took by me!”

And he grinned impudently in the face of Mac Strann.  The latter, who had been sitting with slightly bent head, now raised it and looked the pair over carelessly; there was in his eye the same dumb curiosity which Haw-Haw Langley had seen many a time in the eye of a bull, leader of the herd.

The giant explained carefully:  “I mean, they’s a friend of mine that’s been sittin’ in that chair.”

“If I ain’t your friend,” answered the black-haired brother instantly, “it ain’t any fault of mine.  Lay it up to yourself, partner!”

Mac Strann stretched out his hand on the surface of the table.

He said:  “I got an idea you better get out of that chair.”

The other turned his head slowly on all sides and then looked Mac Strann full in the face.

“Maybe they’s something wrong with my eyes,” he said, “but I don’t see no reason.”

The little dialogue had lasted long enough to focus all eyes on the table at the end of the room, and therefore there were many witnesses to what followed.  The arm of Mac Strann shot out; his hand fastened in the collar of the black-haired man’s shirt, and the latter was raised from his seat and propelled to one side by a convulsive jerk.  He probably would have been sent crashing into the bar had not his shirt failed under the strain.  It ripped in two at the shoulders, and the seeker after action, naked to the waist, went reeling back to the middle of the room, before he gained his balance.  After him went Mac Strann with an agility astonishing in that squat, formless bulk.  His long arms were outstretched and his fingers tensed, and in his face there was an uncanny joy; his lip had lifted in that peculiarly disheartening sneer.

He was not a pace from him of the black hair when a yell of rage behind him and the other brother leaped through the air and landed on Mac Strann’s back.  He doubled up, slipped his arms behind him, and the next instant, without visible reason, the red-headed man hurtled through the air and smashed against the bar with a jolt that set the glassware shivering and singing.  Then he relaxed on the floor, a twisted and foolish looking mass.