Tales From Gavagan's Bar (35 page)

             
"How is that?" asked Witherwax. "That's the City Hall in the background, isn't it? But it's no secret that you're a member of the Council. And what's that under your foot?"

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Ah, there you have it! [said Maguire, bringing the flat of his hand down
on the bar.] Sure, I knew you were smart as soon as I saw you in Gavagan's. That there under me foot is a shoeshine box, and it's not that it's there that tells the story, but that there's nothing over me foot. Did you ever hear of a man putting his foot on a shoeshine box, just for the fun of it, now? You did not. Mr. Cohan, have another go at the glasses, and I'll tell you how it was, and why it is that I come into Gavagan's Bar, just to be spitting in that brass crock there.

             
It all started four years and more ago, when me old grandmother got a letter from Ireland. She says to me: "Denny," she says, "this is good news for ye. Your great-uncle Tom is dead and gone, and you're the head of the house of Maguire."

             
"And what good does that do me," says I. "From all I hear of my great-uncle Tom, he had nothing to leave anyone but his good wishes, and it will be a cold day in July when they take them at the grocery store."

             
"Hush, will you?" says she. "Have I not told you many a time that the head of the house of Maguire had a leprechaun to be working for him?"

             
So she had, for sure, all the time when I was a boy, and me laughing a little bit behind me hand at the old lady. I says to her: "And what use would a leprechaun be to me here in America, where I can go round the corner and buy me a better pair of shoes than any leprechaun could make? And not feel the price of them, neither! Besides," I said, "me great-uncle Tom Maguire will not be the last of the name left in Ireland."

             
"I'll thank you not to make mock of an old woman," says she. "Maguires there are in Ireland, and I hope there'll be more; but not another Maguire of Ballymaclough. Your
grandfather was the last of them, except for his brother Tom that never married. And you'll not be making mock of the little people, neither. They can bring you good luck or they can ruin you."

             
And she started telling me a story that I could see was going to take the best part of an afternoon. So being a busy man, I said I would put in a good word with the immigration people for this leprechaun when he landed, and I left. And that was the last thought I gave the matter till after me grandmother was dead and in her grave, God bless her soul. I never would have thought of it again but for this picture you see here.

             
Now it is my experience in politics that the people, they like a leader to look like a leader but to sound like one of themselves. So I made it a habit, being as I had me office at the City Hall, to stop on me way back from lunch and get a shoeshine from one of the boys that hang around there, and pass the time of day with them. Those boys, they know a devil of a lot more than you'd think about what's going on, and many's the time I've learned things from them, like when they saw Prossiwitz, that's the Republican councilman that was, whispering on a park bench with Spencer the contractor, the dirty rat.

             
I favored this one lad of a bootblack. He was a little one; not over four feet high, with ears too big for the head of him, and he looked like he was never proper fed. The thing that took me was the brogue he had; as though he just stepped off the boat from old Ireland herself. Me, now, I came over here when I was a little lad, and I lost all me brogue before I was sixteen.

             
This lad, now I asked him what his name was oncet. He said it would be Diarmait, which is the name of one of the kings of Ireland, and strange name for a bootblack. I told him so, and many's the time I used to laugh at him about how he'd grow up to be a councilman himself, and maybe mayor.

             
One day, when I was talking to him like that off and on, not looking down too much, but watching the birds that fly round the park, and looking for maybe someone I knew, he
stops shining my shoes. "Maguire," he says, and when I looked down at the tone of voice he used, I could see he was serious. "Maguire," he says, "ye are a Maguire of Ballymac-lough. Ye should know already that I'll never grow up to be a mayor or a councilman neither."

             
That should of told me the story, but I was only listening to the last of this rigamarole with one-half me ears, because just at that minute, who do I see coming across the park but this felly Angelo Carnuto, that was in the numbers racket, and him a man I'm not wishful to talk to any time. So I give the boy Diarmait a quarter and took meself off, and forgot the whole business.

             
It would be a week later or more when this picture come up. I was having me shoes shined again and smoking a cigar as you can see for yourselves, and a fine autumn day it was, when one of these photographers comes along, the kind that takes your picture and hands you a ticket, and you send in the ticket with a bit of money and get the picture. Now a photographer like that has a vote like any other man, so I took the ticket from him and stuck it in my pocket, not thinking about it at all, but only about the election that was coming.

             
That night I went around to the Fifth Ward Fidelity Democratic Club, where they was having a rally. Seeing that I was running that year, the secretary of the club come around to me with something about getting photographed for some posters with me face on them—not that it's much of a face, but people like to see who they're voting for. Well, I was that busy with one thing and another, so I reached in my pocket for the ticket and told him to get that picture, maybe it would do. And it was this, this picture here.

             
Look at it, now. Do ye see a sign or a bit of the boy Diarmait, that was shining me shoes? Ye do not; and neither did I. When I saw it, it come back to me about the time the lad had spoken, and then I began to understand, and I thought to myself: "Denny Maguire, one of two things. Either that day, you had a drop too much, or this is the leprechaun of the Maguires of Ballymaclough, and no
mistake." For you could no more photograph a leprechaun than you could photograph the thoughts in your head, when some people can't so much as see them.

             
The more I considered it, the more like it seemed, with the little wizened up face of the brat, and his ears too big and too pointed. It fitted together; with all the shoes in America made by machinery, what would he be doing but shining them that was already made?

             
With that, another thought come to me. I remember how me old grandmother, God bless her, used to say that every leprechaun had a pot of gold hidden away somewhere, and he would have to give it up, if you only held onto him till he did. At that time I was needing some money. You will remember that was the year when the Republicans had Judge Gregory up for mayor, yelling their heads off about reform; and it come to me that a few dollars might make all the difference between winning an election and losing one.

             
So the next day, on me way back from lunch, I stopped for a shine. It was a doubtful thing to do now, because there was a little rain falling, and nobody else at all around the front of the City Hall but me and the lad Diarmait. When he bent over my shoes I reached down and grabbed his arm.

             
"Let me go, you big ape," he says.

             
"Not till I get your crock of gold," says I.

             
"What do you mean, crock of gold?" says he. "Would I be shining shoes here in the rain if I had a crock full of gold to live on?"

             
"I'm thinking maybe you would," says I. "Come on, now, I know who ye are. Hand it over."

             
He wept and he pleaded, and said it was all he had between him and the workhouse, but I would not give up a bit for that, and the end of it was that he opened up his shoeshine box, and there it was, the big brass crock you see at the end of the bar, only it had a lid on it then.

             
"Take it," he says. "Take it, and that's the luck of the Maguires of Ballymaclough until ye get some sense in your fat head, or else the house is bossed by a Maguire that knows his business better than you do."

             
I took off the lid of the pot and thought I'd be wanting little more luck than I saw inside there. It was full to the brim with gold pieces; all kinds, some of them looking like old Spanish, some English and other things. It was a fortune in there. I could hardly lift it.

             
There I stood with it and thought. I could not spend the gold pieces as they were, for it's against the law, and if I turned it in to the gov'ment, like the law says, I'd lose half the value of it. Not that I'm for breaking the law, you'll understand, but the law is against people trying to cheat the gov'ment, and this was something special that had come to me as honest as the day is long. So I thought I would take my pot of gold somewhere and sell the pieces one by one, which is not against the law at all if you find one of those collectors.

             
But the more I thought of it, the less I liked the idea of taking that pot of money home, what with three children and the old woman around the house, and no more did I like the idea of taking it up to my office in the City Hall, with an election coming on and Republicans all over the place. Then I thought of my old friend, Mr. Cohan here, and how he was always one to do a favor for an honest man, and I called a taxi and came right out here.

             
When I got out of the cab, the pot seemed a lot lighter than when I got it. I set it on the bar and asked for a drink, and told him to have one for himself, and would he mind taking care of the pot for me the while. He lifted the lid and took a look in, and then he gave me a look like I had lost my wits entirely.

             
"Are ye pulling my leg, maybe?" he says. "And why should I take care of a pot of beans for ye?"

             
Then I looked myself, and would you believe it? The pot that had been full of gold pieces as an egg is of meat had nothing in it at all but baked beans. My mouth came open like the mouth of an oyster, for I could not understand at all how such a trick had been played on me. I told Mr. Cohan the story and about how the lad Diarmait was a leprechaun, and he says: "Did you spit in the pot?" "No," says I. "Was
I
supposed to?"

             
"Yes," says he. "It's well known in the old country that unless you spit in a leprechaun's gold to hold possession, it will turn to something worthless. Oh, oh, and now you'll be having bad luck, I'm afraid."

             
There it was, a
nd no help for it, and the luck was as bad as could be, for we lost the election. Is that not true, Mr. Cohan?

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"Every word of it," said the bartender. "And there's the pot for proof."

             
"But what have you got it here now for?" asked Brenner, looki
ng in the direction of the brass crock.

             
"Didn't I tell you?" said Councilman Maguire. "It was after the election, and a poor day that was, too, I come in here to see Mr. Cohan, and we were talking about the misfortunes of the Maguires. And he—"

             
"I made him tell everything that had passed between him and the boy Diarmait," said Mr. Cohan. "Because a leprechaun will be wonderful attached to a family; and not bringing bad luck to them if they'll give him half a chance."

             
"Then it come to me," said Maguire, "that the leprechaun said something about getting sense in my head, and Mr. Cohan here says that maybe if the gold was gone, there'd be some luck left in the pot yet. So he pulls it out and puts it at the end of the bar there for a spittoon. And I spit in it. And would you believe it? The very next week it was found out that Spencer the contractor had Prossiwitz, that was the Republican councilman, on his payroll, and wasn't that a fine thing for a man that was elected on the reform ticket? He had to resign, and when they held a special election, I come over here and spit in the crock and the right man won the seat. So now
I come every time there's an election. A little more out of that bottle, Mr. Cohan."