(OOC: Nora's last post was in "Nora's place." This thread takes place before her visit at the Kendalls'.)

Four men were standing around in the street not far from McMillian’s, and they were not sober. Nora saw a woman she knew – a colleague – emerge from a side-street only to quickly retreat back in when she spotted the group. That was wise of her. There was no doubt what they were after, and it was obvious that they would not be pleasant – possibly not even paying - costumers. Nora, however, proceeded towards the entrance of the bar, and sure enough, one of them approached her as soon as he noticed where she was headed..
"Havin’ a drink and a laugh then, are we?"
"I hope to, yes."
"Like to have it with me?" He did not wait for her answer, but pulled her close and held her.
"You can’t afford me."
"Why, you cheeky li’l...!"
"Parker," one of his friends interrupted, but Parker ignored the man.
"Says who?"
"Says me," Nora replied. "I’m expensive."
"You sayin’ I’m poor, or you sayin’ I’m ugly?" Parker wheezed, trying to twist her arm.
"Parker, I wouldn’t do that if I were you." his friend advised him. "That there’s McMillian’s girl."
"What, Byron McMillian, the barkeep?" Parker spat.
"And bar-owner," Nora pointed out.
"I know he plays with her, but you know she’s a whore, right? Oughtta be able to share - Not like she’s his little wife! Plenty of folks been on her."
"Well, don’t say no one warned you." Parker turned to Nora.
"Or did you want to play Mrs. McMillian, hm? You know there already is one?"
"I know."
"I’ve seen him with you; he doesn’t give a flying fart about you."
"That might be true, but we have an arrangement. Byron will have your head before tomorrow’s over if you mess me up." Nora was not nervous. If he wanted her, he’d have her, but she was fairly sure that would not happen. She was fairly indifferent, too. And drunk. Those two last things might or might not be connected to each other.
"I’ve seen ’im mess you up ’imself!"
"And I’ve seen him mess you up before, too."
"You are a sassy little thing, aren’t -"
"OY!" A loud call was heard from the entrance of McMillian’s. "Parker!" It was a young boy, far too young to belong in the doorway of such a place, and far too thin to be intimidating. Nora sent him a warm smile.
"What?"
"Byron said to tell you to go to hell."
"Right." Parker shoved Nora off and his friends chuckled gloatingly. Nora stuck out her tongue and he made a rude gesture in return.
"Thanks, William."
"Just doing what I’m told."

That was how it worked with her and Byron. Him keeping her with alcohol in return for having his carnal needs taken care of, was only part of the deal. He also provided protection for her in return for borrowing her services when he needed to calm down impatient creditors or butter up potential partners and the likes.

William took her arm like a true gentleman and lead her into McMillian’s, where Byron – as usual – spotted her as soon as she came in the door.
"Wher’you been hidin’ lately?"
"At home" she chirped.
"Doing what?"
"Nothing."
"Nuttin’?"
"That’s right. And I got paid for it, too." She blew him a flirty kiss as she swung by the counter.
"Well c’m’ere. I missed you."
"You did?" Happily she let go of William’s arm and flew into Byron’s. William scowled.
"Occourse I did, you’re my girl." He pulled her close and she giggled as he let his hands glide over her figure. "Aren’t you?"
"Hehe-yesss...!"
"Look here!" He held a glass of red wine up in the air, too high up for her to reach it.
"Give it!" She jumped.
"Say it first."
"Whaat?"
"Say you’re my girl."
"I’m your girl!" She continued reaching for the glass and he playfully kept pretending to hand it to her, and then pulling it away, constantly keeping it out of reach. "I’m your girl, Byron, gimme!" Laughing, he finally obliged and watched her drink with his arms tightly around her waist.
"Mmm, good, eh?" Nora nodded into the glass. "Good girl. Drink up. We’ll ’ave some fun tonight, you and me, the boys and a deck o’ cards."
"Ack, no, Byron, pleease."
"Byron, please, Byron please. Don’t you wanna make me happy?"
"Yes, but... How many?"
"Just this one chap o’ight? I owe ’im some money. - And his friend. I will be so good to you. You’ll have all you can eat ’n drink the entire weekend, and -"
"The weekend! You already owe me the weekend for that stupid sign you just had to buy from that - !"
"Oy! Lass!" He raised his voice and then sternly with his finger on her nose commanded, "Be’ave."
She smiled. "Sorry."
"But yeah, you’re right. Let’s say next Wednesday, eh?" She hesitated. "Eh?!" He nudged her. "You know I’ll treat you like a little princess, and the fellas are gonna love you." She giggled. "Besides: You been treated like trash by those rich fancies lately. Think o’ last Monday! Sweetheart, we wouldn’t never dream of messin’ you up like that! Ye’re my little ingel, ye’re my girl!"
"I’m your girl!" She did a twirl, almost spilling the rest of the contents of the glass.
"Yeah, so we ’ave a deal then?"
"Yes. Gimme more." She held out the nearly empty glass.
"Haha, more of what?"
"Stupid! Gimme!"
"Want some of this?" He held up a bottle. "Is this what you want?"
"Yes!" Again she reached for it, and again he backed away, holding it out of reach. Then he hid it behind his back.
"Come get it." he dared her with a leer.
"Oh, you think I wont?"
"Haha! I hope you will"

Ethan sat quietly in the far corner, sipping a small glass very slowly. The liquid which shone gold in the dim light was still more than half full even though he'd been sitting there for at least a quarter hour. His eyes were centered on the barman and the woman with him. He'd been watching the woman closely ever since she walked in.

On the table before him lay a small pad of some sort upon which he constantly wrote, only flicking his eyes briefly to the page before returning them to the scene again. This woman was fairly common as whores went. There was something in her though, something Ethan thought worth jotting down. He studied her playful giggles, and her flippant disposition. Was she happy? Could someone of her station in life be truly happy? He thought not.

Ethan lifted the glass to his lips again and drained it to the halfway mark. Aside from the girl, the barman interested him too. While he was playing with the whore, he was neglecting the other customers needs. He looked around and saw several glasses empty. Looking down at his own, he decided to drain it. Test the barman. Test the help.

He tipped the glass up and then gulped it down, slamming it back down on the table without the customary whoop but there was a grimace. Alcohol was not his choice drink but whoever had poured it for him only came around with a pitcher and did not ask preference. Ethan stared at the glass, fearing his eyes would tear up from the toxic taste but they didn't.

He sighed, feeling uncostomarily uncomfortable in this sort of establishment. Ethan was out of his element but he refused to be outwardly intimidated. His eyes scanned his notepad. More. He needed more. Picking up his ink pen, he began writing again, eyes switching from barman to whore. Their behavior was deplorable at best and disgusting at worst. He shook his head. All this better be worth what he'd get. This kind of company made him feel grimy and dirty. A bath was in order.

Mads entered McMillian’s, not really paying attention to anything in particular. His was the standard of interest that came from having been clocked a couple times on the head recently, coupled with familiarity and partial inebriation. He had just been thrown out of a pub down the street. After a couple of drinks, it had seemed like a matter of necessity to defend the reputation of his regiment when some other fellow had called the 60th Rifles, “A bunch of butchers.”

Of course, that other fellow had been Colin Swades, a discharged soldier from the 2nd Rifles who was now a pub rat and a troublemaker, who insulted anyone within range. If Mads had been sober, and had he not been obsessing over previous circumstances that always led him to think the same thing himself, he might have let it go and ignored Swades. But alcohol cut Mads’ self-control down to a raw nub, and he had waded in on Swades. Swades wasn’t a weakling, and Mads had taken some good knocks before he had been pulled off the man and thrown out. He had consoled himself on having been unable to finish the fight by considering that he had broken Swades’ nose while he himself only had a bruise coming on his face, and a small split in the skin.

And then he’d come here, to McMillian’s, but when he roused himself out of his incurious shuffle, he discovered that Byron was occupied. Wiping a smear of blood from the cut on his face with the back of his hand, Mads watched the barkeep tease his whore. Everyone that came to McMillian’s with any regularity knew that Nora was something of a fixture there. She really was Byron’s whore, as much as she could be said to be anyone’s whore. Mads hadn’t yet decided whether he was actually her pimp, or if she procured for herself and just had an especially favourable arrangement for Byron. He didn’t really care; it was only idle speculation of the sort to keep a person occupied. Seeing Byron give Nora her drink and put his arms about her, Mads figured it would be a bit before he could get a drink.

Feeling put-out about this—he couldn’t even get a damned drink in a bar!—Mads looked around for someone to pass on the joy to. The perfect target presented itself in a corner of the room: there was a fellow there that obviously did not belong with this crowd. He was writing, and Mads would be willing to bet that he was one of three in the room that could. Mads angled towards the stranger, and took a place beside him without asking. He said belligerently, “Slumming?”
However, before Mads could gear up to continue harassing the bloke, a nearby man passed out. Instantly, there was a scramble, but Mads won by virtue of being closest. Returning his attention to the writer and cradling his newly-won and near-full drink, Mads changed his intended purpose. He was no longer in such a foul mood, having secured a drink, and a free one at that. He jerked his head at the other man’s empty glass. “It’ll be a bit. He ain’t looking to his custom at the moment.”
Mads glanced back at where Nora and Byron were fooling around, and let his eyes rest on her body. He laughed and turned back with a leer. “Not that I would either, with my hands on a bit of tasty like that, eh?” He nudged the writer, to reinforce the conspiratorial point, and then remarked, “Have to wait for his wife to take over, or someone else.”
Without waiting for any form of reply, Mads, made loquacious and completely oblivious to personal privacy by a fresh infusion of alcohol, nodded at the writer’s paper. “What’s all this, then? Are you a journalist? There’s nothing worth writing about here. Nothing anyone cares about, not anyone who could read it. You’re wasting your time.”

With that helpful information dispensed, Mads stretched a hand out to try and take the paper. In direct contradiction of what he had just said to the man, he was curious to see exactly what someone of a higher class thought was interesting enough to write about.

His hand was cramping so he put the ink pen down and began massaging his palm. The ink pen was an expensive one, not requiring a jar except to refill it. This gave him relative freedom to write anywhere he liked. He became wary of his surroundings however when he looked up and spied a clearly inebriated man walking toward his table. Surely this man was aiming for the table beside him. It would be inexcusably rude to just sit next to someone one had not been introduced to.

Ethan looked back down at his paper, hoping the man still had braincells and that they were remembering manners but he was sorely disappointed. The man plopped down beside him and asked, "slumming?" Ethan blinked as the man's breath seethed from between his grinning teeth, making him blink. Clenching his jaw, he waved away the stench as discretely as he could.

"My business is none of your concern," he replied, "but no. I am not 'slumming' as you so eloquently put it." The expression on his face suggested that Mads could go float face down in a river. The look only intensified when another drunkard beside them passed out and Mads took his drink. Ethan covered his mouth in order to avoid gagging. He didn't even respond to the man's next comment referring to the empty contents of his glass. At this moment he didn't care about character sketches or whores or the way a bar was run. He wanted out of here and he wanted out now. His lip curled back in a disgusted expression when Mads mentioned Nora being "tasty".

"Have you any moral center? Any at all? Christ, man! She is filthy!" He gave Mads a once over and frowned. "Not that it matters. You're of the same cloth if I had to guess. She is a whore. No amount of money would induce me to touch someone of her...reputation!" Ethan glanced back at Nora. Outward appearances mattered little to him. A woman who was beautiful but disreputable was worth little to him. He would have chosen a plain virtuous woman as opposed to a free night with the likes of a prostitute. Ethan ran his hands down the front of his vest as if to make sure there was no dirt on him. This conversation was fast becoming one he would have to write about.

"What's all this then? Are you a journalist? There's nothing worth writing about here. Nothing anyone cares about, not anyone who could read it. You're wasting your time." Ethan gritted his teeth. It took all his composure to remain calm.
"If you please, leave." This was what he was going to say before the man reached for his pad. Seething anger boiled up so much that he could not stand it. Rather than punching the man in the mouth like a common drunk, he snatched his pad to his chest and glared.

"You, sir will excuse yourself at once or I shall be forced to remove you. Do you understand?" No one touched his paper. No one touched his pen. Ethan made a mad grab for that too and stuck it in his satchel. Now that this had become a confrontation, he had no intention of backing down. No, he would not leave this table. Mads would. By choice or by force, Ethan didn't care which. He continued to level the man with a murderous stare. True, more than likely he would not resort to violence, but this man didn't know that. Nor did he know Ethan. In this respect, he felt he had the upper hand.

As soon as Mads reached for the paper, the writer snatched it away and hugged it to him as if Mads had just reached over to try and eat his baby. He grabbed his pen as well, and then levelled a violent gaze on Mads. “You, sir will excuse yourself at once or I shall be forced to remove you. Do you understand?”

Mads blinked at the writer. Had he heard his ears right? He looked into his appropriated drink for a moment, as if it could tell him the answer. He’d only had two and a half, and that wasn’t enough to make him raving drunk. Not enough to make him hear things. The man must have really threatened him. Mads stared at the journalist, or rather the man he assumed to be a journalist, trying to gauge the seriousness of the man. Maybe he was having some kind of weird joke with Mads. But the man looked deadly serious. Mads shook his head and took a pull from his drink, murmuring to himself, “Oh, man…” He put the drink back on the table with a thump, looked at the writer again, and burst into chortles. It was ridiculous!

He snorted through his chuckling, “You must be joking!” He had to be, that was the only explanation. It wasn’t as if the other man appeared terribly weak. It was just that he was one of the snob-kin, and did he really think that he was going to be able to make Mads leave by force? Mads was quite confident that he could take the fellow. Mads had a strong, powerfully-muscled body, one of his few assets, and in addition was neither afraid of getting hurt nor of hurting others. If it came down to a rumble, Mads rested assured in the supreme confidence of winning. He thought it only charitable to let the journalist know this fact. He leaned forward across the table to address the man conspiratorially. “If you want to fight, I ain’t got no trouble beating another man tonight, and you can write that down if you like.”

It wasn’t a threat, it was simply a statement of fact. Mads was not going to start anything with the fellow—unless you counted sitting down uninvited at his table—but he was far and away willing to finish anything. Having given the man fair warning, it was now up to the fellow to throw the first punch, if he really wished to start a fight. However, there was one more thing that Mads felt it necessary to address: his insults to Nora. It was not that Mads was particularly fond of Nora. He had never even slept with her, as she was far too expensive for him. However, watching this man, who felt that he was too good to whore—Mads debated whether it was a cover for an inability for a moment, since the fellow clearly had trouble finding Nora attractive, even though she was not literally filthy—insult someone from Mads’ class when the man was the intruder here wasn’t going to fly. Mads carried right on talking to the writer, not giving the man a chance to speak.

“There’s something you should keep in mind, man, when you toss about insults and threats. You’re the one that’s down here. I ain’t come up to one of your fancy clubs, you came down to ours. You want to go about insulting an honest working woman, that’s your business. But don’t expect me to stand by silent while you do. That there whore that you call filthy, she’s got the right to be here. Nora’s one of us, just another person trying to make a shilling for her next meal. You, though, you sit there and you got nothing to worry about, unless you start something. You’ll leave here and go back where you came from and you’ll forget about anything you see over a guaranteed slice of bread and a cuppa. But once you leave, we still got to work if we want to eat. Don’t go judging when you haven’t been to McMillian’s for real.”

Mads sat back loosely in his chair, unafraid of the writer and his words. Let him sit there in his comfy clothes with his belly full and insult someone for trying to secure the same, and they would see who was more the man of the two.

It was disturbing to fly into a selfrighteous rage only to be laughed at. Mads stared at Ethan. Ethan stared at Mads, still clutching his precious paper. His expression did not change. While his anger had been caught off balance and faltered slightly, he still held onto his notions the way the a log can't quite shake a fire. Ethan's mouth was pressed until it became a thin line on his face.

“If you want to fight, I ain’t got no trouble beating another man tonight, and you can write that down if you like.” The threat was recieved loud and clear and struck Ethan with a strange feeling. Any argument he'd had before had come from a man on a couch, discussing politics or perhaps his father. This was not to say he had never gotten into a scrap. As a boy, he could romp with the best of them but that was a long time ago and he was fairly certain that if it came to blows, Mads would win. Realizing his inferiority when it came to brute strength, Ethan shook his head only very slightly, indicating he had no wish to take escalate their disagreement to an unnecessary level. Before he could speak again however, the man kept going; preaching about Nora's (Ethan assumed she was the whore) virtues, and the common man's 'rights'.

He was dumb founded. Ethan opened his mouth in order to comment but shut it again. His eyes, an industrious dark blue in the dim light, glittered coldly. To say the speech did not move him would be a lie. In fact, the words, though not flowery or smooth in the least had a certain charm. He clapped. It was soft at first, the kind of clap used inside parlours after a heartfelt poem but it rose. It rose up like a slap of thunder across the sky, rolling and loud, followed quickly by a shrill forced laugh. This was not the laugh of a madman. It was not the laugh of desperation. It was a feral laugh, one that surprised even Ethan.

He leaned toward Mads who by now was comfortably slouched in his chair. Ethan's hair was still neatly parted and combed, his clothes still clean and crisp, his face and hands clean. No, he did not resemble anyone in this bar or on the streets outside it. Though he was not of the wealthy class, his life would fair far better than Mads' would; especially once his father passed on to the Holy Trinity.

"'Honest. Working. Woman.'," Ethan leaned closer until his midsection was pressed into the table's edge. "You're right, sir, it is my business who I insult. I did not come down here to cast the first stone and I certainly did not come down here to present myself as his Majesty, Jesus Christ. What I did come down here for was to gather information. If you please, sir, show me the sign that says an honest working man cannot stop in here and get a drink."

Ethan pointed at Nora as he spoke his next few sentences. "I never suggested she should not frequent this fine establishment. I never suggested she did not earn her keep. Take this how you will, but get your head out of your ass." The feral laugh had left an uncostomary smile on his face. "I stated a fact. She carries disease. She will probably go to hell and the rest of us with her. It is my preference not to defile my body with some other man's trasngressions which this poor woman, who obviously has suffered at some point in her life, transmits. From where I sit, she could be as charming and as sweet as the Virgin herself. But she will not touch me."

Ethan watched Mads closely, steeling himself for a good punch to the nose. "Have I cleared up our misunderstanding, sir? Or would you like me to keep going? I cannot speak for you but I am free to debate moral issues all night."

Mads eyeballed the writer, unsure if he was quite sane, as the man began to clap. What was he clapping for? It wasn’t like he was going to get service that way, not when it was Nora that was occupying Byron, and besides one clap was enough to get notice. This fellow though, he just went on and on, and then he started to laugh rather peculiarly. Then he went off into the oddest rant ever, saying he hadn’t come to present himself as Jesus Christ. Well, he wasn’t in any danger there, Mads thought. No one was going to make that particular misconception. The man leaned closer and closer, finally saying, “If you please, sir, show me the sign that says an honest working man cannot stop in here and get a drink.”

“There ain’t no such sign,” Mads said, uncertain where the man was going with this. He started out by saying he didn’t come to the pub to insult people but to gather information. It was kind of odd how touchy he was about talking to people then, but whatever. Some men were like that, and Mads didn’t really care. But ending with that… was he implying that he was an honest working man stopping in here for a drink? Writers were not honest working men. They most certainly were not. Writers might think they were and might think writing was hard, but writing was never honest. Ever. The writer chose what went into his writing, and what he presented was never the whole truth of a situation. And writers lied with impunity if they felt like it.

Further, writers couldn’t qualify as honest working men in the classic sense either, because writers produced nothing of value. Their words were read not by the masses, but by the comparatively tiny number of literate people. They were of no value to an honest working man. You could not live in a house built from words, and you could not survive by eating words, and you could not clothe yourself in words. What honest working man was he talking about?
Mads had no time to ruminate on it further, because the man continued in his argumentative mode. “I never suggested she should not frequent this fine establishment. I never suggested she did not earn her keep. Take this how you will, but get your head out of your ass.”
Mads’ lips thinned. The slur to him was clear. The man was certainly a rude fellow, wasn’t he? Mads had done nothing to him except give him some friendly advice and he felt it necessary to dish out more insults. Mads told the writer exactly how things stood, in the spirit of fair play. “I’ve not said anything to you that warrants that, man. I’ll let this one go. Don’t expect me to let another.”

Fortunately for him, the man did not continue to insult Mads. He did, however, move on to insult Nora. Mads looked at him with wondering contempt. The man must be soft in the head, or weak in the belly and already drunk. First all that clapping and then the laughing and now this. Honest working woman, the writer had said it himself. Didn’t he know what Mads meant by that? Or did he live with his head so far in the clouds that he actually didn’t? Mads leaned forward in his chair threateningly, perfectly willing to correct the misconception and defend Nora’s good reputation. “Before you pass any more wind, you might want to collect a little more of the information you came here to get. Nora don’t work when she’s got something. I said she was honest. I don’t know where you got the idea she had anything, but it ain’t true.”

Mads continued, still annoyed that the man was willing to talk about Nora as if she were a dishonest whore, but feeling it the better part of honour to warn this fellow exactly where he was, since the writer was clearly unaware. “Then you might also want to know that you’re talking sh•t on Byron’s girl, while you’re sitting in Byron’s bar. Maybe that sort of thing goes down where you came from but here you’re looking to get a couple sharp taps on the head with a bottle, if you know what I mean.”

He leaned back again. “Now as for misunderstandings, I’ve got one for you. When were we ever talking about moral issues?”

Ethan sat quietly, his tirade over. He eyed the empty glass wondering what the hell had actually been in it. This was the only one he had had. People were looking at him. He glanced around nervously. Perhaps he had gotten rather loud. Damn his temper. It got him into trouble more times than he cared to remember. He was lucky he wasn't a very good catholic or he might have had to leave the bar right then to go to confession. All this arguing was pointless and where had it started? When this man rudely sat down? What had he done next? That's right. He had offended Ethan further by talking about the whore. It was there Ethan himself had erred.

A deep blush crept into his cheeks and spread over his face until the whole of it was flushed pink with embarrassment. With his trigger finger, he poked the glass, again wondering if it had been whiskey or not. Beer or whiskey, he never had been able to stomach or take alcohol well. It ended poorly as always and tonight was no exception. He felt like a dog with his tail between his legs and his pride sorely wounded. Whore or not, he did not know Nora personally (not that he intended to) and had also outright insulted Mads not once but twice. Ethan cleared his throat.

"I," his voice failed him. He tried to focus on the last question only since the rest of the words had scalded him like boiling water. The last question. Think of an answer! Moral issues. "Prostitutes..." he squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. No good could come of this. He did not think he had the ability to save face in this particular situation. On paper he was a master. He could start over, think for long periods of time, organize thoughts, see the finished product and decide it was absolute tosh. He could talk and talk and talk until he felt the argument solid and complete. This was not the case in social interactions. He was not as quick with his wit when he had to think-on-his-feet, as the Americans said.

"The moral issues where um..." He hated this. His thoughts were scattered as feathers in the wind. "Ethics on prostitution wasn't it? You said something about the young miss over there and I claimed I wouldn't touch her and then you became angry which flared me up and we...You must have...I said um..." He couldn't remember. Almost shyly, he glanced over at Nora and the barman who didn't seem to have noticed but then again he'd had his eyes closed for a while.

"I am not a good christian," he said finally as though this comment made sense to anyone but himself. This was what he had said to his father some years back when they had a disagreement involving his volatile temper. Mr. Perris senior had eluded to the fact that christians control their outbursts and that they were good and kind to everyone. The hypochrisy of the entire faith was appalling. Ethan had always had the notion that one should not hide one's character behind some facade.

"I will not apologize for my opinion. It is mine to do with as I please..." he felt defeated and indeed he was. By a man more drunk than himself if he really was as pissed as he thought he might be. "But I will apologize for the slurs. They were...unwarrented. My manners towards you this evening have been inexcusable but you must apologize also for your rudeness as well. You are not innocent in all of this," Ethan held onto this belief like a drowning man. He was not the only one that had displayed uncouth social graces.

He was tired now. Tired of the arguing and tired of people staring at him. Usually he liked to go unnoticed and stay that way but that isn't how things had turned out for him. He hadn't hurt anybody much less talked to anyone to cause offense until Mads had shown up and brought out the worst side usually reserved for his father or a preacher. Ethan sat back in his chair and looked down at his boots. This particular pair had spurs on them. He wanted to reach down and spin the shiny metal wheel but didn't. He had acted chidishly enough already and had no wish to continue the behavior.

His eyes wandered up from his shoe to Mads. Biting his lower lip, he waited for him to say something, anything. The most inconsoloable feeling of regret hung over him in a haze. He regretted coming here but mostly, he regretted grabbing his paper and ordering Mads to go away. If he had just let him see the paper none of this would have taken place. People were starting to turn back around. Most of them couldn't have heard the last couple of things he'd said and they probably didn't care. There obviously wasn't going to be blood. They were no longer interested.

Mads watched an extraordinary change overtake the writer’s face. He turned a completely different colour; Mads shifted in his chair, balancing in the centre in case the man’s face was darkening in anger and he was about to lunge across the table and strike Mads. But then the man poked his glass idly, and Mads knew it wasn’t anger but rather something else that coloured the writer’s face. Since he hadn’t drunk anything more in the time Mads had been at his table, it wasn’t that he was flushed with drink, and thus, there was only one other explanation. It was embarrassment. Mads’ eyebrows rose. He’d never actually met the kind of man that would flush with embarrassment. Mads himself never found his face unduly red from that circumstance: both he and most of the men he knew were the sort to defend injured pride with quick blows.

But this fellow, he didn’t. He blushed. What a curious man. Mads leaned forward again, his interest piqued again. It would have had to take a certain sort of courage for a man who would blush rather than punch to come to a place like McMillian’s. Either that or a certain sort of obliviousness, or a confidence in his higher station rendering him untouchable. Which was it, Mads wondered? He watched the man pinch the bridge of his nose as he stumbled over an answer to Mads’ question about moral issues. It turned out that the journalist thought that they had been discussing the ethics of prostitution. Mads wondered what on earth he had said that could have been taken in that light. Mads had not disputed the man’s choice not to whore, he’d only disputed the things that the fellow had said about the particular whore in question.

Maybe the writer was talking about the debate over whether Nora was an honest whore? Mads shrugged to himself. Whatever. It didn’t really matter, did it, since the man didn’t seem keen on continuing any debates. In fact, he seemed downright at a loss for words; for a bit he even had his eyes shut tightly. Mads just waited. He had all night to wait, since the only real question for him tonight was whether he should spend his money getting pissed or spend it on a whore down in Yardley Row.
Finally the writer came up with, “I am not a good christian.”
Mads, used to being in the company of drunk people and desperate people (and often people who were both at the same time), where a conversation could shift rapidly between unrelated subjects, was not daunted. He replied comfortably, “Well, that makes two of us, then.”

He was quite certain that he was, in fact, a terrible Christian. He had drank, he gambled, he whored, and he had killed men. That was surely enough to damn his soul right there, especially since he hadn’t really repented any of it, except the killing. He had no time to ruminate on his irreligiosity, however, because the writer spoke again, apologising and then saying Mads should as well. How strange this fellow was. Why in the name of the Lord would he apologise for insulting Mads, when Mads hadn’t given any indication that he wanted or expected one? It was just a tad discomfiting to deal with someone who behaved so much out of the norm that Mads was familiar with. It must be a higher-class thing to issue such apologies.

Mads was used to a pattern that took a much different route. If a man insulted him, and the insult was not too grave, then Mads would warn him about it, as had just happened, and then it was supposed to be a given fact that if the man insulted again, Mads had the right to light into him, and if the man subsided and gave no further insult, then everything was peachy and they were good mates. Mads eyed the writer again. Mads wouldn’t apologise, because he hadn’t done anything and it seemed unmanly to do it, but he decided he could be bothered to reassure the fellow. He said, “I won’t take your papers, if that’s what you mean.” Then he decided he might as well be reconciliatory, since the writer didn’t want to fight.

He leaned forward, his shoulder swivelling forward to stretch an open hand, palm down, across the table for the other man to shake. “Mads Jørgensen. What kind of information has a fancy bloke come down here to get, then?”

"Mads Jørgensen. What kind of information has a fancy bloke come down here to get, then?" Mads hadn't apologized. If he had not been so very far from safty Ethan would have politely reminded him but under the circumstances and in light of recent events, he'd let it go. Being quite a student of human behavior, he was quite aware of what Mads' gesture meant, even if he did not. The fact that the other man's palm was down clearly indicated he thought himself the Alpha Male.

Ethan smiled privately. He was perfectly fine never being the Alpha but he was no one's Omega. Beta suited him just fine. He grasped Mads' hand firmly and flipped it so that they were locked equally horizontal, no one belly up. It would surprise him very much if Mads understood what he'd just done but it would please him as well. Somehow though, he suspected his aquaintence of not caring.

"Mr. Ethan Perris," he introduced himself softly. "The information I have been gathering has to do with character sketching. I am a novelist among other things. What I am working on currently is a novel set between England," here he pointed to the table, "And America," and here he spread out his arms. "Have you ever been to America? It is astounding. It is so very big and their trains? They can go for weeks!"

Ethan cleared his throat. He'd gone off on a tangent of sorts and tried to get back on Mads' question. "I came to observe the lower class in their 'natural invironment' with no pressure from an outside source. I believe to now accomplish this feet I would have to move to another bar. Everyone is behaving different now that they have noticed me congradulations to our little disagreement, which by the way, thank you so very much."

Ethan glanced arouind again to make sure no one was staring. They weren't. He reached down into his bag and pulled the paper and pen back out. He opened the little book to a new page and twisted the pen so that the ink could flow. With the paper before him and his pen at the ready, Ethan decided he'd like to get to know what made his newest character tick as well was what he was going to have to tweak.

"So Mr. Jørgensen, tell me what brought you to my table? I want to know all about you. Your likes, dislikes, traumatic events, happy ones. Anything you'd like to share." Ethan cocked his head to the side and watched Mads. He fully expected the other man to tell him to piss off.

(OOC: I asked how Ethan's face would look while Mads said about gambling and stuff, and Ethan's mun supplied that information. :) )

“No, never been,” Mads replied, and the writer, Mr Ethan Perris as he had introduced himself, seemed to rein himself in on the subject of travel to America. Ethan Perris, Mads decided, had a funny handshake. Not that it mattered, but there was something that just wasn’t right about it. Mads shrugged to himself. He didn’t really care about it. Perris said that he was a novelist come to observe the lower classes, which, of course, automatically put Mads’ back up, even if he didn’t make any move to reveal it. What, he was just going to come here and observe Mads and his mates (not that they were really his mates, they just were in this context of being united against the supercilious writer) like they were some kind of animals?

And then Perris proposed starting with Mads as the case study animal. Mads eyeballed him, debating whether or not he should just walk away now. After all, the fellow was a posh bastard, and Mads probably wouldn’t get anything useful from him, either materially or immaterially. But then again… wouldn’t it be something to see Perris take down Mads’ words… Mads decided that yes, he would grant Perris his time and his tale. It would be fun. He started with a fairly honest recounting of how he had come to Perris’ table. “Well, first I came in, and I couldn’t get a drink. I was looking for someone I don’t know to work over, and vips! There you are in your fancy clothes. I come over and sit down, but before I can get going, all my problems are solved by this fellow over here.” Mads patted the unconscious drunk whose drink he had stolen as if the man was a lifelong mate of his, and Perris’ eyebrows rose.

“Next thing I know, I’m talking to you about what I likes or not.” By this time, Perris was writing furiously. Mads continued, “As to that, let’s see. Well, I like to drink.” Mads raised his cup, just as Perris’ eyebrows came down in a frown. “You probably got that one already. Then, I like to gamble. If the dice are hot and Lady Luck smiles on me, I like it a lot. Next, I like whoring. There isn’t anything nicer than a lovely lady in your bed on a dark night, keeping you warm and comfy.” The writer’s eyebrows went back up and Mads leaned forward, telling the writer conspiratorially, “I like it when they blow my bugle. And I like to slap around a fine pair of knockers a bit. And then there’s the tasty; ever tasted a woman that was juicy for you? There ain’t nothing to compare. It’s like a little slice of heaven for your own. Oh, and a nice arse. I like a nice arse to plough.”

Perris was looking progressively more and more judgemental as Mads continued, and the speed of his pen could not quite keep up with Mads’ rapid-fire revealing of his personal life. “Then, I was in India until recently. There, I learned I like killing people. Now I know that sounds bad, but you have to understand, it’s kill or be killed there and I like living. So yeah, I like sighting down my barrel and blowing the brains out of a coolie.” The novelist’s face had lost its judgemental cast and had transmogrified to carry a look of pity on it. Mads went on, “There was also this one time, we took a town, and we castrated all the men and then hung them by what was left. Raped the women. I think we should have kept them as camp followers but a lot were too banged up after that night, so we left them to shift for themselves. Ever raped a woman? It really gives a man a thrill. Sepoys weren’t too happy but what can they do? White men, we can take what we want.”

By this time, Perris’ hand had stopped entirely and he was staring at Mads with a sick look on his face. Mads tried to continue, reaching into biblical knowledge for more taboos to break and coming up with obscure rules from the Old Testament. “I like to put stumbling blocks before the blind. I like to let my seed pass through the fire to Molech. I like to cook lambs in their mother’s milhahahaha!” Mads couldn’t contain himself any longer, and burst out laughing at the expression on the man’s face.

Still chortling, he said, “I’m just f•cking with you, man. You should see yourself, writing all that sh•t down!” Mads burst into another fit of laughter, slapping the table in his mirth.

Ethan stared. He just stared. He didn't know if Mads was really making it all up or not. He'd heard worse things. Somehow, somehow he thought Mads capable of so much more. The man had to be a soldier, he at least surmised that much. As for the rest? Who was to say? If it really was fiction, he could write it out as he pleased. Though drinks did not sit well with him, he suddenly felt as if he could use one.

Instead he flipped over the sheet of paper and started a fresh one. He began to write.

• Bold Faced Liar
• Drunk
• Probably Carries Disease
• Likes Whores
• Little to no moral constitution
• Served in military
• More than likely really has killed at least one man
• Likes to think about raping women
• Perhaps likes scaring people
• Does not fit my perception of American. Will probably insert as French character instead.

Ethan looked up from his paper and shut the book.
"Well Mr. Jørgensen. If you're not going to tell me the truth, just say so. I have put our argument behind us but I suppose you're still carrying a grudge. If this is not the case, then please, give me what I came for. After that we will never see each other again, which I am sure will give you some small pleasure." His face was a perfect blank slate, his eyes narrowed and serious. He was quite unamused but not angry. Not yet.

Perris just stared at Mads, which only made Mads laugh harder. He couldn’t have asked for a funnier face if he’d picked it out before hand. Perris was goggling at him, writing nothing down because he was looking at Mads, and Mads couldn’t stop laughing with that kind of hilarity sitting just across from him. Finally, Perris broke his stare, flipped to a new page in his little book, and began to write again. Since the author wasn’t talking while he was writing, Mads used the time to try and get his laughter under control. Unfortunately, it kept resurfacing, preventing him from being able to read Perris’ writing. Eventually, however, he did rein it in, and tried to read from the book that was upside-down to him as Perris wrote in it.

He caught only one line before the man looked up and caught him reading. Perhaps it was because of this or perhaps it was because he had already finished what he needed, but the man flipped it shut. Mads grinned at him. The line he had read was Bold Faced Liar. He agreed with the assessment one hundred and ten percent. There was nothing he was if not a bold-faced liar. He would look a skinny, pock-marked whore in the eye and tell her he thought she was beautiful, he would look his mother in the eye and tell her that he was stationed at a perfectly safe fort in India, he would look a dying soldier in the eye and tell him that he was going to make it, he would look a grieving widow in the eye and tell her that her husband had died without pain, he would look himself in the eye in the mirror and tell himself that he was not afraid of being alone. A bald-faced liar.

Perris, however, didn’t seem to think it was such a happy thing to be a bald-faced liar as Mads did. His face had gone still and his eyes narrowed, and he said, “Well Mr. Jørgensen. If you’re not going to tell me the truth, just say so.” He went on to say that he wasn’t holding any grudges but he supposed Mads was, and would Mads please just answer if he wasn’t and then he would never have to see Perris again. Mads nearly rolled his eyes. Of course he should have expected that a higher-up like Perris would have trouble having the piss taken out of him by someone of Mads’ class, but for Pete’s sake, it had been a joke. And besides, Perris could have figured it out by himself that Mads was joking any number of times, if he hadn’t been so gullible. No one was going to admit to that many illegal sexual practices to a novelist!

Oh well. Mads supposed that he would just chalk this one up to Perris either having absolutely no sense of humour, or having far too fragile an ego. Mads could remember much more humiliating jokes that he had both perpetrated and had pulled on him, and he had never gotten all bothered about it. Except for the greatest joke of all, being sent off to India for a faithless love. That one had bothered him. Best not to think of it. He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward to address Perris. “It was a joke, and Mr Perris, my man, we ain’t had an argument. We’ve only had a chat between blokes down at McMillian’s for drinks. I start smashing things on your skull, then you know we got an argument on our hands. Hence, I ain’t got a grudge on you.” Mads grinned widely. Here was a bit of the truth he would dispense for free, a token of good will. “I just like f•cking with people’s heads.”

Then, in order to keep the novelist from leaving, since he was actually interesting to talk to and Mads had nothing better to do, he proposed an alternate way for the writer to get what he wanted. “I don’t know, Mr Perris. You’re a sporting sort of person to have around. Why don’t we do it this way? You guess something, and I’ll tell you if it’s true. I’ll give you the answers but it’s no fun if I think up the questions as well, is it? Hey now, we could even make a drinking game of it, mate. I guess something about you, you guess something about me, and whoever gets five things right first buys the next drinks, a tie and it’s each his own.”

“It was a joke, and Mr Perris, my man, we ain’t had an argument. We’ve only had a chat between blokes down at McMillian’s for drinks. I start smashing things on your skull, then you know we got an argument on our hands. Hence, I ain’t got a grudge on you.” Ethan sighed heavily. This man was absolutely vile but also had the sort of personality one just did not find in the upper class. “I just like f•cking with people’s heads.”
"Clearly," he answered, his tone dry. Being the butt of someone's joke did not put him in the mood to be particularly friendly. In fact, in made him want to walk out of there and hide in his room. This had always been the case ever since he was a boy. Back then he and the boy tussled until one of them lost. If he was the one to lose, he ran home and hid, thinking about how he could have won verbally if not physically. Hiding was not an option now; not when he was a grown man. Children hid. Adults had to sit there and talk.

In the middle of his reminiscing, Mads started talking again. He mentioned answering truthfully to any question posed. Ethan stifled a laugh. How could he take the word of a liar? Anything Mads said may or may not be true. He was having an extremely hard time figuring out if his new "mate" was lying or not because the man seemed all too comfortable doing it. At the mention of Alcohol, his stomach flipped uncomfortably.

Should he mention that alcohol made him ill? No, it would only make him even less of a man in the other man's eyes. He swallowed. His thoughts were conflicted as well as jumbled. This was why he did not like being involved with people. They made him uncomfortable and it was always an experience he regretted later. Still, his father had written that he needed to get used to drinking. Wealthy men like to drink. Poor men like to drink. Ethan thought he was the only man alive who did not like to drink. He swallowed again and glanced at his drink hatefully.

"Alright," he said. "But you must keep your word. Be aware that I do not trust anything you say, and am inclined not even to trust your promises as you have lied to me many times." He could not help feeling like he was a "mood killer" as one girl called him once. "This is a silly game...but I will play," against my better judgment he thought.

He wondered what people would say to him if they saw him now, in a dirty pub, about to play a drinking game with a man of little to no integrity. This was a learning experience, he told himself sternly. One cannot write what one does not know. And one does not know this at all... He was extremely uncomfortable but he did not want to seem afraid. Indeed, he was worried about vomiting all over the front of his clothes and having to explain it away when he walked into the boarding house in the early morning. News would spread, it would-
“Let us drink before I change my mind,” he said.

(OOC: Sorry. For everything. The lateness, the suckiness and the non- interactive-ness.)

In another corner of the bar a couple of men were getting loud. Nora did not pay attention to what they were saying, and neither – it seemed – did Byron, but William had his back against the counter and was watching them curiously. After a while, however, he seemed to lose his interest and turned back to face Nora and Byron.
"Byron," he interrupted them impatiently. "You promised me a beer."
"Hold yer horses, kid. Can’t you see I’m busy?" William rolled his eyes. Nora giggled.
"Yes, this is some very important buisness. Come, now, Byron, give him some food."
"I don’t want food," William protested. "I want a beer."
"Give him some food," Nora simply repeated.
"Beer. I was promised a drink."
"Sit down. Sophie will bring you food." Byron commanded him. "Sophie!"
"Right here," Mrs McMillian appeared in the entrance to the back hallway where the stairs up to their private apartment could be found. She had a child on her arm and another hanging in her skirts.
"Will you feed Nora’s puppy for her." Nora giggled again. William stared darkly at Byron.
"Empty glasses all over the place, Byron," Sophie remarked as her eyes scanned the room.
"Ack, I’m not a bloody barmaid. Let’em come and buy their drinks if they want’em. And take over here for a moment, willyah?" She nodded. Nora smiled at her. She did not smile back.

It was almost always like that with the wives. They placed their hatred and anger on her as if she was the one who came to take their husbands away from them; as if she was a home wrecker who broke up marriages. It was silly. If they did not know how to please their men, then of course the men would go elsewhere. There was no reason why they should be so self-righteous about it. She probably saved their marriages, and in addition she did the work for them. Some of them she even spared for a lot of discomfort. Byron treated his wife far better when he was not frustrated. Their anger was inexplicable to her. But not all of them were angry. There were the rare exceptions. Like Mrs Hanford.

Mrs Hanford had come to Nora the other day and approached her tentatively, the way they all did, un-used to lower class environments such as McMillian’s, and unsure as to whether or not they had found the right girl.
"Excuse me... Miss? Are... Are you – is your name Nora?"
"Yes." Nora had fully expected an outburst like the ones she was used to. Why did people always point her out to these upper class ladies? Was it not quite obvious why people like them were asking for her? Mrs Hanford had looked at her for the longest time, and Nora had squirmed under the intensity of her gaze.
"I see," she had finally said softly, nodding. Nora had fastened her own eyes at Mrs Hanford’s shoes, which, by the way, was a very fine pair of footwear indeed. There was a pressing silence for the longest while.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Yes," Nora said quickly. She knew very well what Mr Hanford’s wife looked like. She had seen them together in Kirk Street on a number of occasions.
"Ah."
William had come over just then. "You o’right?" he had asked, adressing Nora of course.
"Yes, thank you, William." Nora had replied, but here eyes had begged him to stay, and so he did.
"I..." Mrs Hanford began. "Would like to speak to miss... to Nora on her own. If you don’t mind."
"I mind," he said, and Nora hid a smile. There had been silence again. Mrs Hanford capitulated and began speaking in spite of William’s presence.
"Is he... does he...?" she chewed her lip. "Is he gentle...? ...with you?"
"Well – ah... Haha..." Nora didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Mr Hanford was not a man one would describe as ’gentle.’ Not in any way. But he was not violent either. "That depends." Mrs Hanford nodded again. "...on his mood and his..."
"Mhm,"
"...state."
"I see," Mrs Hanford said again.."And..." Nora looked up to see her expression, and it was Mrs Hanford’s turn to lower her gaze. "Do you... Uh, do you see a doctor regularly?"
"I do."
"Oh, good!" She seemed relieved and for reasons Nora could not define, the situation became far less awkward at once. "...Good... That’s good."
"Yes," William said unnecessarilly, as if to remind Mrs Hanford of his presence. Nora thought disloyally that there was nothing much he would be able to do, really, if Mrs Hanford decided to act out. She did not, however. Instead she smiled mildly and complimented Nora on her looks.
"You are very pretty." Nora blinked and said nothing. "And you have a pleasant disposition... I can see why he likes you."
"...Mh?" Nora began hesitantly. "...Thank you, ma’m." she curtseyed. "I think...? And I’m sorry."
"Oh, don’t be sorry! No, no, I didn’t mean to – that is not why I came here."
"Oh, good," William said happily and left.
"May I ask why you did come here, ma’m?" Nora inquired, and curtseyed once more just to be sure.
"I came here t... Well, to see who you were – how you look... And to make sure I was safe."
"Well, ma’m, I can assure you nothing would reach you from my end."
"I do not mean in that way alone. I mean... Does he.... Do you talk – Does he talk to you?"
"Not a lot, no."
"Does he... care about you?" Mrs Hanford looked very worried as she asked this question, and Nora was unable to hold back a smal laugh at the absurdity of the question.
"There is no danger of that, ma’m. He is my client. It is a buisness relationship. Nothing more."
"You are certain of this?"
"Yes, ma’m."
"I..." She looked for a moment as if she would cry, but composed herself and held out a hand instead. "Thank you."
"For what?" Nora wondered, not even caring to hide her surprise.
"For this. For answering my questions. And for everything. You are good to him – good for him. And me. For us. "
"I am?"
"You have made him happier. And now I can be happier also."

Byron pulled at her sleeve. "Come." William was eating a buttered slice of bread with eggs.He raised his glance now.
"Those two chaps over there," he pointed at the men that he had been watching earlier. "They were talking about you. I think they were about to fight, even."
"That’s Mr Jørgensen," Nora enlightened him.
"And?"
"Nothing. He knows me is all. That fancy fellow was eyeing me earlier. Perhaps he is interested."
"Well, she’s busy now. They’ll have to wait. Come along, princess," Byron put an arm around her and showed her to the door. Nora stumbled in her skirts.
"Weeee!"
"Careful, darlin’."
"Careful, careful..." She tip-toed beside him and they disappeared into the back.

(OOC: Ethan-text cleared with Ethan-mun on IM)

“Let us drink before I change my mind.”

At these words, Mads clapped once, loudly, to call Sophie over. Though she was actually Mrs McMillian, the wife of Byron whom at this very moment was heading to the back room with Nora, everyone knew her as Sophie. She sent him an ill-tempered look, but headed over with a pitcher. Mads felt sorry for her, cursed with a cheating husband, and one who didn’t even consider her feelings at all but did it right in front of her. He was not the most moral man by most people’s standards, but he did think it only right and fair that a man should keep the vows he made on his wedding day. Sophie’s husband must have got his words twisted around if you went by his behaviour, Mads thought sourly: Byron forsook his wife for all others, instead of vice versa.

Mads drummed his fingers on the table-top as Sophie made her way to him, trying to think of some way to help cheer her up. He was not the best of comforters, lacking the soft touch necessary for it, but… Sophie had been unhappy that Byron turned to Nora for his needs instead of her. She would feel unwanted from that, and unattractive. That was something Mads did know: everyone wanted to feel wanted. And with that thought, he decided how he would try to comfort Sophie. It would require excessive lying, because Sophie, if he were to be perfectly honest, was far from physically attractive to him. She was quite overweight, and she did not carry it well because her body sagged from bearing no less than six children for Byron. But he didn’t mind lying for a good cause (or even a not-so-good one) and so he set his plan in motion.

As soon as she was near enough the table, he called, “Sophie! You look ravishing!”
She poured their drinks and said, “Yeah, that’s the beer talkin’.”
“No it ain’t.”
“Sure, an’ next you’ll be goin’ on about angels.”
Mads pulled Sophie down so that she was sitting on his lap and, utilising his ability to tell a bold-face lie to the greatest extent, said, “You most surely are an angel. I ain’t seen a more beautiful face in all my years.”
Sophie snorted. “That’s ‘cause you ain’t lived ‘s’long as me, young ‘un.”
“I could live ten times as long and never find another to compare.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Byron would never forgive me for kissing his wife in his bar…” Mads began, and placed the tips of his fingers over her mouth. “…but rest assured, it is only the fear for my life that prevents me from taking you right here.” And he leaned in, exactly as if Sophie was his lover. His other arm pressed her weight to his chest, circling around her back so that his hand caressed the back of her head. Except that his lips met the obstruction of the fingers he had placed in the way instead of her mouth, it was precisely the way he would kiss a truly beautiful woman.
Sophie went along with it after a moment, and when he released her, she groused, “Ach, a young bounder like you couldn’t satisfy me.” But there was a lightening in her mood, and the corners of her mouth twitched.
Mads leered at her, flexing his abdomen, resulting in a suggestive shifting of his nether regions against her. “You never know until you try.”
Sophie snorted, “You wish.” But she smiled.
Mads grinned. “Aha! There is the smile I love to see!”
“Yer just another dirty charmer, I ain’t got time for you,” Sophie said in mock bad temper, and hoisted herself off Mads’ lap. But the smile remained in place.
“You know where to find me when you do,” Mads said with a wink and a leer, and pinched her bum as she turned to walk away.
She squeaked and shook her head at him, but she was still smiling.

Mads watched Sophie walk away to attend to the rest of her custom. “Poor woman,” he remarked softly, half to Perris and half to himself. “She was beautiful once, until she had too many children for her husband. And look at the thanks he gives her.” He shook his head and turned his full attention to Perris. “I think a husband ought to stick by his wife, and you can have that one for free.” The novelist shifted uncomfortably, jotting down notes in his book, and Mads returned to the previously-proposed drinking game. “I’ll start, then. You haven't been to a pub of this type before, have you?”

Perris thought for a moment, and then replied, “Not this type of Pub but a Saloon in America. I suppose it’s the same thing. Same Rabble...excuse me. Same patronage.”
Mads narrowed his eyes at the reference to rabble, but let it go. He swore to himself however, that if Perris kept it up, something would happen to the writer. Something painful. He replied, “Not the same thing at all then. We British can drink Americans into the ground. I got one on my score. Your turn.”
“All right,” Perris conceded the point. He thought for a moment. “Are you married?”
Mads laughed. “Nope! Not that I’m opposed to the idea, but not many would marry a...” he remembered that he wasn’t to be giving away free information, and changed what he had been going to say. “…me. Let’s see then. Um... Your books sell well?”
Perris smiled frigidly. “I could only dream of it. Do you have siblings?”

Mads answered, “Yes, actually. Two brothers and three sisters. We’re at a point each. My turn: You have siblings?” It was turning out to be an interesting way of passing the time for him.

Being totally unfamiliar with this game, his clutched he glass, ready to throw it back whenever Mads told him it was time. He did not want to appear as if these customs were completely foreign but the truth of the matter was that he was clueless. Indeed, even in the ways of charming women as Mads had. Though it was vulgar and shameful, he'd written down several good things about his new mate. He was surprised to learn of himself that he was even a little envious. Never having been good with women, he tended to avoid them whenever possible.

Once upon a time in his youth, he had liked a girl very much. She was not the prettiest girl in the village but she was the one who would talk to him. On a bright and sunny day very much like this very afternoon had been, he decided it was time to express his true feelings to her. This was a painful memory and one of the few times he had ever tried to be gregarious. With sweating palms and his heart racing, he marched up to her as she was giggling with her friends.
"Martha," he'd proclaimed loudly. "I love you. We're going to be married." Needless to say, his announcement was ill received at best. He could still remember the amusement in her brown eyes when she patted his arm and told him what a funny joke it was.
"You're a silly boy, Ethan," she said. "Everyone knows I am going to marry a preacher." And that was that. His heart broken and his spirits dashed, he decided women were more trouble than they were worth and swore them off forever.

Mads' display with Ms. Sophie was brilliant though uncomfortable. He did not like that the other man had lied flat out to her but she seemed to enjoy it. The envious expression plagued him for a little while until he could focus enough to ask and answer questions. The last question that Mads had posed was still waiting to be answered. Ethan stared at his drink and smiled a bit, now thinking of his sisters.
"Yes, I have siblings. Two sisters." He was going to say that Marie was married but decided not to. His opponent had obviously concealed something, though he had no idea what, so he would also conceal information. After all, it was not lying right?

"How old are you?" it was a logical question. One he needed to complete his sketch. There was more than enough information to make a fantastic character but he wanted to keep this game going and he felt guilty about it. People of Mads's sort did not hang out with people like him and it certainly went visa versa. Still, he found that he was having fun. Fun; he could not remember the last time that word had passed through his mind. Life wasn't fun often but this? This was grand! Mostly...

The hallway in the back held three doors except for the one leading to McMillian’s Food and Drinks and the stairs up to the McMillians’ apartment. One was the back entrance, one led to a storage room and the third door opened now to display a small room with a round table and six chairs. Nora knew this room well – not that there was much to know. There was nothing on the walls here except a couple of shelves that both had empty bottles on them. The floor was dirty, and so was the table. The only things on the table – aside from dirt – was a deck of cards and an ashtray. Byron held the bottle of wine in one hand and Nora’s bum in the other as the two of them entered.
"We might have time for a -" he began, but just then they could hear someone entering the hallway from outside and a male voice said: "I do not want to hear any more about it."

"Mr Green!" Byron greeted the the man before he could even see him. He could tell by the voice who it was, and so could Nora. ”The very one.” grunted the same voice.
”Good ter see ya, man.” Byron said as his visitor appeared in the doorway. ”Come sit down. I’m sorry about the locale.”
”Hmh,” said Mr Green, demonstrating that he thought the apology certainly was in order. Behind him into the room – to Nora’s great surprise – came his son, Tobias Green. He looked pale, thin and frightened as ever, and he was clutching himself as if he was cold. The temperature was fine, however; more likely he was just protecting his clothes from the dirt on the walls around him.

They were both dressed impeccably, like the upper middle class people they were, and Mr Green senior had an impressive moustache that was better trimmed than Byron’s.
”As I have mentioned to you before, and as I am sure you have mentioned to your little woman here,” he began as soon as he had taken a seat, and he was scowling at Nora. ”she has not been doing her job lately.” Byron looked at Nora and Nora looked at the ashtray. It was shiny.

It was true that she had not done her work, but Byron knew as well as she did that it was not her fault. Tobias had not wanted her. They had read books together. He was a sweet boy, but he was as queer as the day was long and his father despised him for it.
”As I understand it you are her... Uh, her...” He waved a hand in a manner that most of the men at McMillian’s did not wave their hands. He looked elegant as he did it. Nora noted that he was taller than Byron, and he had broad shoulders. He was a strong man, she knew that from earlier dealings with him.
”I am not her pimp, if that wus whatcher referring to,” said Byron.
”Yeah, that,” said Mr Green. Tobias was sitting beside him looking sick. He had taken off his glasses.
”Nora works on her own. I just help her out a little from time to time.”
”Well, I met her through you, so that makes her your responsibility as far as I am concerned.” replied Mr Green sharply.
”Fair enough.”
”You know I have the power to make both of your lives very miserable.”
”...Father...” his son protested, but Mr Green barked back before he could finish even his first word.
”And yours too, boy! Be silent!”
”I know that,” said Byron. ”Although I’d hope ye’d find it in yer heart tuhh... not.”

Mr Green leaned back on his chair and produced a pipe from the inner waist pocket of his coat. Byron quickly offered him tobacco for it, and he lit it, scanning the room with eyes that did not care to hide their disdain for the surroundings or the company. He was uncomfortable with both, but he was one of those people who instead of dealing with their own discomfort projected it on others.
”My son does not yet know the reason why we are here,” he said.
”No, but if you would not mind enlightening me –“
”In due time,” his father cut him off. ”You remember what we talked about, do you not?” He was adressing Byron. He had hardly noticed Nora after his first glares. Nora had a feeling that Byron had made him a deal to save her from Mr Green’s fury. Byron now chuckled.
”You still up for that, then? Seriously?”
”This is not a joke. I will not be in the room, of course, because it would bother me even more than it would bother my son, but I want you to supervise it.”

Mads grinned when Perris said that he had two sisters. A second point on the tally for Mads. He noticed that the novelist was smiling when the man said it, and he wondered what thing in particular the man was smiling about. But it wasn’t his turn, so he didn’t guess at it, waiting instead for Perris to ask his question, which he did. “How old are you?”
Mads had let the mistake go by before, when the phrasing had allowed for it to be a yes-no question, but the man wasn’t sticking by the proposed rules. So he corrected the fellow instead of answering with his age. “No, no, you’re playing the game wrong. You’re supposed to guess something and then I tell you if you’re right or not. Oh, and I got two points, you have one.”
“Oh…” Perris hesitated for a moment, and then asked, “Are you 28?”

“No.” Mads smiled. Currently, he was winning. Of course, that meant he’d have to pay for the next round, but that was a small price to pay for a victory. He was very fond of winning anything, almost to the point where he could not be a gracious loser. His hatred of losing was the reason why he did not gamble more. Even though most of his gambling was done with dice, because dice games were cheap and he couldn’t afford most card games, and thus took a much larger proportion of luck than skill, he still felt that it was somehow because he wasn’t good enough that he lost. And he lost often at dice, and therefore had never formed the gambling habit. Not that he had ever thought about the reason why in that fashion. Mads would never admit to being a sore loser, even while doing everything in his power to win a contest.

He hadn’t been born that way, but ever since joining the army, it had become his way. Or more properly, it had been his way since Louise. Not that he had thought about that either. He never thought of Louise if he could help it, and had over time managed to get to the place where he only thought about her if he was by himself for long periods of time—yet another reason why he couldn’t stand to be alone. And that, after some elaboration, was the reason he was here now, talking to Perris.

He was on leave, had come to England to visit his mother and sister, and could not be with them this afternoon since they were going to a play (not that they hadn’t invited him, it was just that he could not afford a ticket and he refused to allow his sister to pay for it when her husband did not make all that much himself). Thus, he had to find something to occupy his time, and had gone to another pub, gotten kicked out, and then come here. It was not, he thought, an altogether unpleasant turn of events. It was amusing to see how well he could guess Perris’ history and personality, and it was likewise amusing to piece together what the fellow thought about him from the novelist’s questions. Currently, Mads had formed the opinion that the writer thought he was a twenty-something guy with siblings and no wife, but that would change into something more interesting once the fellow got his basic guesses out of the way.

But he couldn’t do that until Mads took his turn. Mads smiled, thinking that, since he didn’t really care how Perris was or need to know any of the other basic facts about him, he could start asking more interesting questions now. After all, he didn’t need an exact profile of height, weight, and eye colour on the other man. He was just fooling around in a bar, playing a drinking game, not collecting information for a novel. So, remembering the envious expression that Perris had had before he got into the game, Mads considered the probable cause of it and made it his next question: “You ain’t too popular with the lady-folk, are you?”

"On the contrary!" he huffed and crossed on leg over the other as he shifted so that he sat sideways on the chair. This was a closed off position but he didn't care if Mads knew or not. What an impertinent question! Ethan put his finger down on the table so that it looked like he was pressing it into the ground.

"What a silly question! I am extremely popular! A certain lady takes a turn about in the garden with me every time she requires a walk!" He sat back and folded his arms, lifting his chin. "And they like my voice, for only two afternoons previous to this I was asked to read for an hour and a quarter from one of my novels. That I am most certainly popular with the female sex you cannot deny, Mr. Jørgensen!"
He felt satisfied that he had won this conversation although it was not a contest.

The lady to which he was referring was a girl of only fourteen. He knew she was half in love with him but it was only through his books. She much preferred him to read to her rather than have a conversation consisting of something else. If he tried to steer the conversation to the weather or perhaps the subject of flowers, she would find some excuse to leave the room. Not that this saddened him; quite the opposite. Once she was gone, he was free to go up to his room and write. Her name was Caroline and she was his father's ward.

Ethan moved to Lindebo mostly for business purposes and his sanity but she had a small portion to do with it. Only the smallest of portions, mind you. She always made him so uncomfortale and feel small unless he was reading to her. If he was reading, he was the immortal Zeus to her. He was boring. He knew it. The only way he was interesting was through his writing and he partly hated himself for it.

"My turn," he said defensively. "You have a drinking problem, do you not?" What this had to do with anything he did not know but he wanted to somehow poke Mads. Ethan was under no dellusions that this question would do anything but it was all he could think of when he was flustered.

”I will not stand for this,” Tobias exclaimed.
”Then sit down,” his father commanded, referring to the irony in the fact that Tobias had just stood up. Tobias ignored it.
”As if I’m a... what? And she...” he gestured to Nora, but was adressing the two others. ”You cannot treat people this way!” ‘
”I can treat the two of you however I damn well please,” Mr Green cursed. ”She is a whore, and you are my son. You will listen to me and do as you are told, or you will no longer be even that.”

Nora thought Tobias’ face grew an even paler shade of white, but she was not sure if that was really possible or if it was just her imagination. He closed his mouth and sat down, perplexed and dumbfounded. Nora got to her feet now, and circled the table, coming around to him. She rubbed his shoulder suggestively and bent down to whisper in his ear.
“It won’t be that bad.” She wanted him to agree and for his father to leave the room; she was certain that they could convince Byron to lie for them afterwards. If not by any other means, then at lest by Tobias promising him money.

But Tobias shook his head and trembled slightly, staring blankly at the table, still with his glasses in his hands.
”Good girl,” Byron praised her. ”See? She knows what to do,” he told Mr Green. ”She will get him going, I can guarantee it. Go on, Nora.” Nora obeyed. She took Tobias’ glasses away from him and placed them on the table. Lifting her skirts and stepping over his lap so that she could sitt across it, she found his hands – they were incredibly sweaty – and arranged them so that he was holding her waist. Her expression was not one of her normal seductive ones, however. With her back turned to the other two men in the room, she was free to search his features curiously and with sincere compassion. She could not whisper to him her thoughts that they should pretend until his father left - Mr Green would hear; he was sitting on the next chair - but perhaps she could somehow let him know without words that she had a plan. She leaned in and kissed his lips carefully. He closed his eyes as she did, and when he opened them again, he was crying. He shook his head again, and pushed her away.
”I cannot... I cannot do this.”
“Wait,” she pleaded.
”No,” he said firmly. But he must have understood her? He looked at her. Yes, he had gotten her mesage. It did not matter. He did not want to pretend.
”Tobias Andrew Green,” his father rasped warningly. There was obvious contempt in his voice. Tobias gently lifted Nora off his lap and got to his feet again.
”You cannot do this, either” he said, and Nora was insecure as to whether he meant her or his father. ”I will no longer tolerate it,” he said, turned to his father now, but then back to Nora, ”And neither should you, miss Nora.”

He picked up his glasses and began making his way to the exit, his father scrambling to his feet behind him, throwing his pipe away on the table.
”You walk out on me?” he asked stupidly, and Byron seemed to think it would be a good idea for him to stand up too at this point.
”I walk out,” Tobias said calmly. He turned to Nora. ”Will you come with me?”
”You can bet your ass that she won’t,” Byron said, and grabbed Nora. As if she would ever have dared. Byron was her only safety. Walking out on him was out of the question, and he should know that – there was no need to take such a violent hold of her.
“No,” she simply said. Tobias chewed on his cheeks for one moment, gave a little nod, and then turned to leave.
”You are aware, son, that you are making a choice here and now. You are no longer my son when you walk out that door.”
”Then I am sorry. For you.”
”You will have no funds. No place to live! You have no friends.”
”Goodbye.”

“On the contrary!” The immediate reply surprised Mads, since he had figured that Perris was not the type to have extensive appeal to women. He leaned forward as the man continued, thinking he might get a good yarn or two out of the man. It quickly became apparent, however, that he was not going to. “What a silly question! I am extremely popular! A certain lady takes a turn about in the garden with me every time she requires a walk!” Mads barely refrained from rolling his eyes as Perris continued on in the same vein. Ooo, he was the favourite with a young lady, which made her take walks with him. Lord but the man must have no life. By the time that the novelist finished his protest that he was indeed popular with the ladies, Mads had relaxed back into his seat and was trying very hard not to laugh at the fellow.

Popular! Because a lady asked him to read to her! Clearly, either the man had led a lifestyle abominably devoid of female company, or he had plenty of women around him and they just didn’t notice him, or he had misunderstood the question. Mads was betting it was the second, possibly with a dash of the first. If he had ever read Hamlet, he might have taken this opportunity to misquote to Perris, “The man doth protest too much, methinks.” However, he was not fluent in Shakespeare, and the classics were all Greek to him, and thus he was forced to voice his thought in his own words. Mads laid a finger aside his nose and winked at Perris, saying, “Right, right, popular with the ladies. I hear you, mate. Guess I was mistaken.” He couldn’t stop a few chortles from leaking out as he said it, but he did try valiantly to keep them bottled up.

Perris seemed to take the entire exchange poorly, because he was sitting in a decidedly pissy manner, and the question he asked afterwards was one that was just as rude as Mads’ had been, but not nearly as sporting in the asking. Mads grinned insolently at the man. There was no need for anyone to get upset here, since it was all a friendly game, at least on his part. Too, he knew that to be irritated at someone who refused to be irritated back was often even more irritating than the original offence. Hence, he calmly replied, “That depends on who you ask, doesn’t it? Myself, I don’t think I have a drinking problem. I don’t need to drink to function regularly, I don’t need it to go to sleep or to wake up or anything. I don’t drink when I’m on duty, and I ain’t never had anything bad happen to me because I was drinking. Never walked off a bridge into the river or blank-loaded a rifle or anything. So I don’t think I have a problem.”

But his point of view wasn’t everyone’s, as he well knew. His brother Nils, for instance, thought that Mads ought to drink less often, and his sister Grette thought that he shouldn’t drink at all. Her children held him in a vague sort of awe for being the relative that drank enough to actually get drunk at times, and his best mate out of the Regiment thought he was quite an excellent drinking buddy, as he wasn’t likely to get angry or look for a fight. Mads was a happy drunk for the most part, unless someone spoke against the 60th Rifles. He allowed for these points of view in his reply, and added, “Now some other people, they might think I do. I drink nearly every evening, and I’m usually drunk once a week. Maybe some people might think I do. It really depends on how you define that.” Mads grinned. “I guess I’ll let you decide whether you got that point or not. We tied or am I still ahead?”

“And as for my next question…” Mads looked at Perris for a moment, trying to think of a question he might get a truthful answer for. The man was incredibly uptight, as observed throughout the entire time they had been here, but now Mads also knew that he was unwilling to admit to any flaw. What was there to ask, then? Mads’ eye fell on the glass that Perris had previously been clutching, and it came to him. “You don’t drink much, do you?”

“You don’t drink much, do you?”
"Well," Ethan paused and then sighed. Here it was. Enevitably the conversation would have turned to this had he swung back like any old drunkard or never touched his glass. "The truth, Mr. Jørgensen, is that I haven't the taste or the stomach for it. Comes almost right back up, I fear." He held his glass up and sloshed the liquid around. A few drops spilled on the table but nothing to worry his shirt about.

"And I do believe the last point was mine. Opinions count for nothing," he said, fully remembering the last question with pain. Ethan wondered if perhaps he was ugly. Women did respond to him but only when they learned he had some means or wrote books. Otherwise they tended to leave him alone unless he was very comfortable. Once he engaged them in conversation, they were quite content to stay talking with him for hours. That was rare though. His first thought was to ask Mads if he was indeed attractive but he shook this thought violently from his mind. First and foremost, Mads was a man, therefore no judge of another man's appearance. Secondly, this man wasn't his friend so much as aquaintence. If he had been a very good friend, near and dear to him, maybe then and only then would he have asked his opinion on such a matter. As it were, the case was closed.

"My turn," he muttered though not unhappily which is not to say that he was having the time of his life, either; not after that last question. "You seem to me a man possessing some intelligence but it doesn't look like you have ever even tried to rise above your station..." he wasn't exactly sure where he was going with this question but now that it was out of his mouth, he couldn't very well draw the words back in. "It would eat me up inside to know that I hadn't done all I could. It seems to me that you're content to wallow. Either you're selfish and content to drift through life doing exactly what you please and to hell with other people, or you're one of the more lazy men I've met, squandering your intellect on drink. Perhaps it's both. Is that right, sir?"

Ethan was nearly ashamed of himself. It was a mean thing he had just said. Had he said it in someone's palour, he would have been asked to leave that very instant, in no uncertain terms. Here though, here it seemed to him that he could ask almost anything he wanted. Whether or not it was the actual truth, no one could depend on that. In the back of his mind, there was still a nagging apprehension that Mads might reach across the table and punch him but he was beginning to think this an irrational fear. As long as he didn't insult something Mads held very close to his heart.

Perris admitted to not having a taste for alcohol, which meant that Mads was right. That meant he was either ahead 3-1, or 3-2 depending on whether or not Perris thought he had made the last point. Mads looked at his own drink and sloshed it around as well, only he didn’t spill any of the liquid—he wanted to drink it, not waste it on the table. He had never had trouble stomaching alcohol, even when he had first began to drink in anything resembling a heavy manner. He had been nineteen when he had first gotten roaring drunk. It had been right after he had found out about Louise, and his goal when he started had been to drink himself to death. He hadn’t been able to do it, because he passed out before he got enough in him. That had been the only time he had ever actually puked from being drunk.

After that, and the hangover that resulted from it, he had decided that there were less painful ways to kill himself, and had transferred himself to the frontlines, and had never drunk enough to make himself vomit since. Imagine being cursed like Perris, though, and unable to drink very much at all before vomiting. How on earth did the man help himself forget what he wanted to forget, then? Did he take cocaine or opium, as some men did? He looked like a man who never relaxed, though, so perhaps he didn’t. Mads began to feel sorry for him a little bit—but the feeling was wiped away by amusement when Perris continued on from revealing his weak stomach to say, “And I do believe the last point was mine. Opinions count for nothing.” What a peculiarly hypocritical statement!

Of course opinions counted for everything. Perris had just decided that his own opinion—which was that Mads had a drinking problem—counted in this matter, and that he had scored the point. Mads thought about arguing with him on the logical inconsistency the man had just stated, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Besides, Mads had said the man could choose whether he had scored the point or not, and to argue would look like he was just angry at the man for deciding that he had. Then the man stated his next guess, and Mads leaned back in his chair. Well, the man was certainly asking more interesting questions now. Mads took a moment to think, and then answered, “This time, you’re wrong. I supposed it’s a reasonable guess, from where you sit, but you’re forgetting something. You don’t know why I’m here. You don’t know where I come from, and where I am now. You can’t really judge whether or not I’ve improved myself, and you can’t say whether or not I’m selfish or lazy since you haven’t heard anything of my life.”

For instance, you think I’m selfish and to hell with other people. Think about this. You saw me with Sophie.” Mads pointed at the woman, where she was across the pub serving other customers, in case Perris had forgotten her. “If it were only for me, I would have really kissed Sophie. And do you know why? Because if I’d done it, I probably could have persuaded her to sleep with me, and it would have cost me absolutely nothing. I wouldn’t have to pay for a whore tonight. Oh, sure, Byron would have been pissed, and he might try to beat me for it, but the plain fact of the matter is that I could take Byron. I could lick him, make it so he couldn’t walk. So nothing would have happened to me. But Sophie there, if I’d kissed her, if I’d persuaded her to sleep with me, Byron would have beat her until she was black and blue. He’s done it before.”


Mads leaned forward, flapping his hand towards Perris and then himself, a gesture that indicated that the novelist was not free to repeat the next bit to anyone. “It’s free information and I should make you guess for it, but I’ll give you this one since you think I’m lazy. I have the opportunity to leech off my relatives. My brother is of your class, and he would gladly raise me to it as well without my having to lift a finger for it. I do not do it, because it is abominably lazy and I will have no part of rewards which I have not earned.”

He leaned back again. “So. We’re at 3-2 in my favour. My turn. You ain’t too confident, are you? What I mean is, you come in here, and maybe that’s confidence to you, but you sit all uptight and you talk all posh and better than me and you try and insult me off the beginning and you don’t want anyone to see your writing.” Mads nodded and repeated himself. “You ain’t too confident, are you?”

“You ain’t too confident, are you?” Ethan raised his eyebrows, his hand still firmly grasping the glass. He shifted so that his legs were no longer crossed and that his body was again facing Mads across the table. Was he confident? Inwardly he smiled. Why should he be? There was nothing for him to be confident about. His book sales were less than ideal, he depended upon his father's business to feed him and give him a real job and right now he was sitting across from a man who could soundly throttle him if the desire arose. No, no he was not confident at all. The truth of the matter was that he was scared shitless and trying to appear tough, though it was obvious Mads had caught onto the fact that he was out of sorts.

"Is it that obvious?" he asked with a wry smile. Ethan lifted his glass to his lips with the intent to drink it but the alcohol smell made him stiffly put it back down on the table, eyeing it as if it had said something offensive about his mother. "No, Mr. Jørgensen, I am not confident at all. Truth be told, women do not look at me the way they seem to look at you. You sit there and drink this toxin as if it's water and the very smell makes me sick. My writing is not worth what a horse drops out of its backside and I am going to be single the rest of my life, it seems. Why on Gods green earth would I be confident? It seems I'm afraid of my own shadow within this unfamiliar city and on its streets."

Ethan sighed ruefully and wiped invisible dust from his front again. It was a habit he picked up at boring balls where people would ask him invasive questions as Mads was doing but these people were going to use it against him, somehow. Mads stood nothing to gain from spreading around all his faults. He smoothed his dark hair back from his face and stared at the other man over the dim oil lamp. The very picture of everything he was taught to avoid was sitting in front of him but were they so very different? Not when judgment day came, that much he would bet his life on. Both of them were going to hell so what difference did it make how they got there?

"I suppose it's my turn for a question..." he trailed off, not feeling very jovial or particularly competitive at the moment. Ethan looked back down at the glass and glared at it. Perhaps it really had whispered some insult about his mother. He could not think of another question to ask Mads that would be particularly probing. Why not ask a philosophical question? It was outside the games perameters, he thought, but why not? It wasn't truely a game one could win or lose and he didn't feel like playing anymore.

"Do you ever feel that everything we do is everything we have already done?" Ethan paused, now staring at the flame. "What is the point of all of this? Of life? I feel like I am living for someone else but I am not quite sure who that is or why..."

(OOC: Yay for barroom philosophy! Dude I :wub: this thread so much!)

“Do you ever feel that everything we do is everything we have already done?”
Mads immediately answered, “No.” What kind of ridiculous question was that? Nothing was ever the same in life. No fight exactly followed another. You could not drink the same drink twice (although Mads privately doubted this particular point at McMillian’s late at night—the man’s morning bitter tasted exactly like it was the second go-round for it). You could pay the same whore two different nights and it wouldn’t be the same. What in the Devil’s name was Perris on about?
The novelist must be harbouring some particular cause of melancholy, Mads decided, for he continued, “What is the point of all of this? Of life? I feel like I am living for someone else but I am not quite sure who that is or why...”

Mads looked at him, wondering if the man had lost someone the way that Mads himself had lost Louise. That was precisely the sort of question that he had asked himself in the early days after that disappointment. He had since formed a different world-view, however, and on Perris’ question, informed the man of it. “You know what your problem is, mate? You think too much. Now I can’t blame you for that, since you ain’t got to work with your strength and your sweat to make your living. All you’ve got is your noggin, and I suppose that you’ve got to use that, being too good for an honest man’s work. But you can put your head to good use or you can put it to bad, and wondering about the ineffable secrets of life or the grand mysteries of eternity or whatever those notions of meaning and suchlike are called, well, that ain’t no use to anyone at all. Not even yourself.”

“You blokes think it’s so much fun to be someone and get written down in the history books. Or somebody’s book. Just so that you ain’t forgot forever. Hey, but mate, that ain’t what life is about. Life is more simple than that. It’s about writing about other people. You write the books and then people, maybe they don’t remember you, but they remember what you thought was important enough to write down. And then they’ll have fun forever trying to remember how you were and feeling guilty they forgot to write you down.” Mads sat back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the table as he collected his opinion into a concise—relatively—set of slightly soused (but nevertheless true to Mads) statements, answering Perris’ question with as much personal honesty as he could.

“Yeah, that’s the problem with your types. That and you go along with things too much. Take that drink. So you can’t take your alcohol. Eh, so what, there’s more than one that can’t. But why’d you let me pay for it and why’re you playing a game where all you’re gonna have to do is drink more of it? What do you drink? Like to drink, I mean. Change the rules so that’s what you get. Don’t sit there and drink something you hate because you’re afraid to be laughed at. Oh, and that’s another thing. You blokes can’t laugh. It ain’t a crime to be wrong once in a while and it ain’t the end of the world if someone notices and laughs at you for it. You gotta learn to laugh at yourself, mate. Be much happier for it. In fact, you’re probably a few cups short of the pitcher for that goal. You gotta learn to laugh at all. Laughter’s key to having a merry go of life.”

Expanding upon his point, Mads leaned forward. “Making people laugh, that’s a talent, that’s a skill. You make other people laugh, you make their day just a little happier, you feel better yourself. You might even laugh.” He slapped the table as something occurred to him. “In fact, lessee if it don’t work. Watch this. You can read, you can make that woman’s day, if you want.” Mads pointed to the woman in question, who was named Betty and was currently engaged in draping herself along the arm of a man two tables away.

He then swung directly into action, not even hearing any protests that Perris might have given. He called loudly to her, “Betty!”
She turned to see who was calling her, and then yelled back just as loudly, “I’m busy!”
At this juncture, the man she was attempting to glue herself to passed out, his face falling in his cup, which was swiftly taken from him and drunk by another man. The tables close enough to follow the exchange and be interested in it guffawed loudly.
Mads shouted to Betty, “Byron already got all his money!”
There was another round of laughter, and Betty stuck her tongue out at him, but she did flounce over. Mads curled an arm around her waist and hugged her hip to his shoulder in greeting, and winked up at her, “I’m a much better catch, anyway.”
She pushed his head, “Must be drunk h’already! What’s you want, then?”
Hooking an empty chair from the next table—which happened to be empty because the man Mads had stolen his first drink from had slumped out of it—up to their table with his foot, Mads gestured for her to take it. She did, and looked curiously at the table’s other occupant.

Mads introduced him to her thusly: “This man here, his name’s Ethan Perris.”
Betty turned a bright but untrusting smile on Ethan. “H’ain’t that something. I ‘ad a cousin called Ethan once, ‘e was a skinny thing.” She gave Ethan a practiced once-over, and then added, “You h’ain’t nothing like ‘im, though.” She waved her fingers at him. “You’re talking to Betty Folgers, good-looking.”
Mads told her, “My mate here, he reads and writes, wouldn’t you know.” He knew that this would not be so exceptional a fact except that few of his class could read, and those that could were always in demand to read letters from out-of-town relations and the like.
Betty leaned forward in her chair, giving both men the opportunity of looking down her dress at her well-formed chest. She wasn’t actually attempting to flirt now, Mads knew, but that did not stop him from ogling shamelessly. With her voice a cross between excited hope and gentle pleading, she ignored Mads in favour of asking Ethan, “Can you really? Oh, would you read something for me? It’s very small, I’m sure it wouldn’t take much time.” She extracted a much-folded letter from somewhere inside her skirts. “Would you please?”

Mads looked at Ethan. This was his opportunity to make the woman’s day, and Betty being Betty, she would laugh and give Ethan a kiss or three for his trouble. Mads was quite well aware what the letter said himself: he’d been present yesterday, when Betty had gotten it. Even though he could read, however, he had not volunteered to tell her what it said—once that knowledge was public, he became different from the rest of the crowd, and he aspired to be one of the common patrons of McMillian’s, not the one who would be regarded as having some snobbish learning. But he did know what the letter said:

My dear sister,
I am returning soon from Africa. Our voyage was safe. The captain is a good man and will give us all time off in port. He has promised not to sail without us unless we do not make call three weeks after we port. Very generous with pay too, so I have a present for you. Must go now, this man charges by the line to write for me.
Your brother,
Andrew Folgers

Mads' answer came swift and made Ethan feel sort of foolish for asking such a question. When the other man proceeded to speak, however, Ethan listened politely until Mads said, "All you’ve got is your noggin, and I suppose that you’ve got to use that, being too good for an honest man’s work." At this he felt himself offended. He raised a finger to interject and say that he was indeed not any better but Mads just went on. Ethan was forced to swallow his pride for it was rude to interrupt.

"Don’t sit there and drink something you hate because you’re afraid to be laughed at. Oh, and that’s another thing. You blokes can’t laugh." Rude or not, Ethan felt that here he must indeed speak.
"You're quite wrong on that account Mr. Jørgensen. I work for my father as a sort of ambassador, if you will, and it is he that says I must endeavor to consume alcohol in such a way that it will not upset my stomach. The rich Top Hats like their wine and brandy." He wanted to say "Dash it all!" or "To hell with it!" but either good breeding or manners or maybe both would not permit him to.

He could have gone on and on arguing point after point with Mads about laughter and being laughed at when the other man called a whore to their table. At the very first, when she objected, he was relieved. However, when she did finally flounce over, he felt his throat constrict as swallowing was made difficult. He drew out from his breast pocket a handkerchief and carefully wiped his brow. There was no sweat there but he was certain some would come soon. Whores made him nervous. When the whore pulled up a seat and sat between himself and Mads, Ethan ever so slightly scooted as far to the side of his chair as he could.

“You’re talking to Betty Folgers, good-looking.” He felt a blush creep up, hot and uncomfortable. He couldn't find his voice for he was at a loss. Mads knew that he did not like whores and on top of that, also had to know by now that Ethan was more shy than most people.
“My mate here, he reads and writes, wouldn’t you know.” If he had been sipping his drink, he would have spewed it across the table and choked.
"Mr. Jørgensen!" his tone pleaded for mercy against this onslaught. As he turned his eyes from Mads to Betty, he got an eyefull down her dress. Another uncomfortable feeling began but it had nothing to do with his feelings this time. He did not dare to look any longer than he had to and so with that brief glimpse seared into his memory, he kept his gaze fixed on Mads. It was iron hard and if Mads cared to interpret it, he would have found I will get you back in it.
“Can you really? Oh, would you read something for me? It’s very small, I’m sure it wouldn’t take much time. Would you please?”

"I-I" Ethan stared at the outstretched letter. Though she was a whore, she had a puppy look about her face that moved him with a strange compassion. This did not mean that he wanted to read it or that he even desired her company. Quite to the contrary, he wanted nothing more than for both of them to go away. He then wanted to go home and sleep away this terrible night. Good breeding and manners took over again and he took the paper gingerly from her hand, careful not to let their fingers touch. Unfolding the letter, he scanned it quickly so that when he did read it, he could do so fluidly. Perhaps he was an entertainer by heart or perhaps it was just a strange obsessive compulsive thing but he wanted to make sure that his performance was exemplary.

"My dear sister," he began hoarsely. He stopped to clear his throat, cast a worried glance at the whore, a hateful glance at Mads, and an indescribable glance back at the letter.
"I am returning soon from Africa. Our voyage wassss...." he lost his place for a moment but found it in short order. "ah here we go...safe. The captain is a good man and will give us all time off in port...In port?"
He interrupted himself this time and was tempted to make an adjustment to the letter. "Shouldn't it be 'at port?'" Suddenly he remembered his audience and mentally kicked himself for not reading exactly or as well as he could.
"He has promised not to sail without us unless we do not make call three weeks after we port. Very generous with pay too, so I have a present for you. Must go now, this man charges by the line to write for me. Your brother, Andrew Folgers."

Ethan did not refold the letter and did, instead, slide it along the table until it sat in front of Betty. The red blush had not left his cheeks the entire time and it did not go even now. His eyes were now settled back onto his glass. It was now that he felt he needed a "good stiff drink!" as he had heard a New Yorker put it. He gripped the glass and threw it back, so to speak. That is, he drank as much as he could before he coughed and had to wipe his mouth on his sleeve. A vile habit but necessary at this moment.

"I hope you're happy," he growled to no one in particular.

(OOC: Ethan said I could mod Betty caressing him. :) Said he'd be mortified, but I could do it, hehe)

Mads grinned at Perris’ displeased look. He’d been gotten back by much more impressive people, so he wasn’t worried, only amused at the writer’s spine attempting to man up. It was particularly funny as the man was a bright shade of red, and had been since Betty had said he was good-looking. The man was obviously unused to such blatant compliments on his appearance. It was quite possible that no woman had ever said anything of the sort to him before—which, Mads reflected, would be a miserable state of affairs to be in. More than one woman had told Mads that he was handsome, and he would be the first to say that he enjoyed it. Imagining living in the society that Perris did, with women who would never say a man was handsome to his face, not because of the facts of the matter but simply because they would never do it, was enough to make him pity the writer.

A little. Not enough to stop tormenting him. Mads’ grin only grew wider as Perris stuttered, “I-I,” when Betty asked him to read her letter. Mads could see from his face that he would do it: Betty’s hopeful and pleading look had done the trick. It came as no surprise when the writer stretched forth his hand to take the paper. Mads noted that Perris missed the opportunity to squeeze her fingers—but that was all right, he grinned to himself, because Betty would remedy the error soon enough. Perris might be rather overwhelmed by her gratitude once he read her the letter.
Perris began, “My dear sister.” He stopped and cleared his throat, and when he glared at Mads, Mads returned a supremely innocent look to the man. If Perris thought it was bad now, he should just wait a minute!
“I am returning soon from Africa. Our voyage wassss.... ah here we go...safe. The captain is a good man and will give us all time off in port...In port? Shouldn't it be ‘at port?’”
Mads looked at Perris blankly, and Betty with wondering gratitude. Neither of them understood what Perris was getting at. In port, at port, weren’t they the same thing? Perris seemed to realise that neither of them knew what he meant to communicate, and hurried on to finish the letter.

Mads watched, his grin returning in full strength, as Perris tried very hard to knock back his drink. It didn’t work as well as he suspected Perris might have wished for, since midway through the man almost gagged and broke off drinking with a cough. Mads’ eyebrows rose, however, when Perris swiped his sleeve across the back of his mouth. Maybe the man was picking up more normal habits from hanging around in McMillian’s after all. Mads would have pegged him as a man that would have delicately dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief. Perris perhaps noticed Mads’ observance, because he growled, “I hope you’re happy.”

This statement was the catalyst that Betty needed to stop staring at the writer worshipfully and to whisper gratefully, “Thank you.” Her eyes started to glisten. “Oh, ‘e’s safe. We was so worried for ‘im! Naught h’a word for months, we thought maybe ‘e’d drowned! But ‘e’s coming ‘ome now, safe h’as h’a button. Oh, thank you so much!” Betty leaned across the table, which made it so that Ethan would get yet another view down her dress, to seize his hand and hold it tightly in her own two. “I am ‘appy, it was so kind of you t’read it for me! ‘ow can I ever repay you?”
“I could think of a way,” Mads spoke up, pinching Betty’s bottom to indicate what it was. He grinned evilly at Perris as he said it, enjoying the writer’s discomfort immensely.
“I didn’t h’ask you,” Betty said to Mads, but she turned back to Ethan with a newly speculative look, and the next moment had moved to lean against the table right beside him. She shamelessly began to caress his hair with one hand, holding his cheek gently with the other. “That is one way, though.” And, moving her hands to either side of his head, she pulled his face directly into her chest, the low neck allowing for his face to come into contact with a lot of her skin. She kissed the top of his head and then leaned back from him again.
Winking at him, she said, “’ow ‘bout it, ‘andsome?” She set her lips in a pout not far from his, so that, should he wish to, it would be easy for him to lean forward and kiss her.

Mads doubled over laughing. There was no way that Perris would be man enough to take her up on the offer.

Mr Green looked like he was considering something. Probably, Nora thought, whether to simply leave without a word - as he was flushed with anger and embarrassment – or to stay and finish what his son had not - To comfort himself with her. Byron waved her over, patting his lap, and she willingly came to sit down on it, much preferring him to Mr Green and thus hoping the signal they were sending would be recognized and accepted. She also hoped that Byron would refrain from his usual ways and actually keep his mouth shut for once. She could practically feel his urge to issue some snide comment about the awkward situation they were in.
“You owe me money,” Mr Green finally grunted to Nora as he got to his feet.
“How you figger that?” Byron asked defensively.
“She did not do the work I hired her to do.”
“She met with ‘im every single time, di’n’ she? Not her fault your son is.... Wouldn’t...”
“You watch your tongue now. And he’s not my son – not anymore. She owes me money, or you do.” Mr Green had already turned his back on them while muttering these last few words, and he did not seem so threatening any more. He looked sad and small, his back hunched slightly as he left the room and slammed the door behind him. Byron put his arms around Nora and placed his hands between her legs.
“Well, that went well. Let’s celebrate.”

Coming back out into the bar, Nora’s eyes first fell on William who was in the doorway again. He was talking to some other young boys on the street outside. By the counter old Saul was staring thoughtfully down into his drink as usual, as if some big revelation waited for him there. The room was rather crowded now that the day was ending and people started getting off work. Others had just started, Nora saw, as she spotted Betty working a potential costumer.
“Don’t seem very interested, dus ‘e?” Byron commented. He was looking the same way Nora was.
“Not really, no.”
“I bet you could make ‘im look different. Tha’ guy’s in your league, not Betty’s.”
“I’m not going to steal her costumer if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“C’mon girl! Where’s your competative instinct? He looks so fine and dandy; a perfect replacement for Mr Green.” Nora giggled. She didn’t think Betty would really be angry with her if she went over just to have some fun. She had nothing better to do for a while anyway. It was not often one saw chaps such as that here at McMillian’s, and in the main bar even - not the back rooms – and talking to Mr Jørgensen. Nora’s curiosity got the better of her and she let go of Byron. What if she really could get another wealthy costumer, or even better; help Betty get one of her first ones?
“Can I have a drink, then?”
“Sure you can. Anything you want.” She pointed at the whiskey-bottle and he poured her a rather large glass before handing it to her. She began eeling herself between the tables in the direction of the one where Jørgensen and Betty were. She had seen Betty pulling the stranger towards her chest and now she was offering him a kiss. Nora smiled, because Jørgensen was laughing hard and the man they were with did not seem very comfortable. His expression right no