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While Stan drained the bottle, Kelly glanced self-assuredly at Studs.

“Studs, you know, ever since you got the attack of pneumonia after our New Year’s Eve reunion, you haven’t looked like your old self. I’m saying this as a friend and warning you that you better watch yourself, and watch the smoking, too. A number of our pals have passed away in their prime because they didn’t take care of themselves. Shrimp and his brother Paulie, and Tommy Doyle. Tommy Doyle was as healthy as any one of us here, and he just ruined his heart carousing. I think it ought to be a lesson to us.”

“I do watch myself, Red,” Studs replied defensively.

He guessed that Red was showing off and if he didn’t watch himself with the way his head was swelling up, it would break open. His face, too, was all puffed out like a balloon, his alderman stuck out in front of him and he didn’t look at all like the old Red. He was getting to look and act like a politician, all right. But he was getting along. The camel’s hair coat he had folded over the seat hadn’t been picked up at no fire sale.

He noticed Stan, medium-sized, chubby, dark, his face no longer pimply as it used to be. His clothes were old, the coat sleeves frayed, and Studs knew that he had come to the funeral at Red’s expense. Poor bastard, he looked down in the mouth and he sure hadn’t gotten the breaks. Married. No job. His baby born a cripple. It was funny the way some of the old boys had died, while others like Red had gotten on, and Stan had run into stiff luck. And here he was, not so much to write home about. He puffed at his cigarette, enjoying the memory of how as a kid he had once cleaned up Red in a fight over in the Carter School playground.

“Gee, fellows, I sure was sorry to see our old buddy Shrimp Haggerty go like he did. He must have suffered, too, sick for well over a year with the con,” Muggsy said, nodding a saddened head.

“Poor Shrimp. He drunk himself under the sod. He was an alcohol fiend,” Les said.

“Well, Les, nobody can accuse you of not having done your damnedest to pull off the same stunt. You drunk enough in your time to put yourself picking daisies alongside of your cousin, Tommy Doyle. And that time you went to the sanitarium, we all thought you had sure gotten yourself the works. And here you are, as hale as ever, and still doing your share to keep Al Capone in business,” Joe Thomas said, causing Les to beam.

“You know, boys, speaking straight from the shoulder, it does kind of get you the way so many of our old gang passed away. Arnold Sheehan, the Haggertys and Tommy, Hink Weber who killed himself in the nut house, Slug Mason beating the Federal Government Prohibition rap by dying of pneumonia, all our old pals. Lord have mercy on their souls. Here today and gone tomorrow, nobody ever spoke truer words,” Red said.

“Tommy Doyle always used to say that when he went to a wake, little thinking that soon others would be saying it at his wake. Poor Tommy,” Les said, while Kelly sucked contentedly on a fat cigar.

“And the only one of the old gang who got his just deserts was that bastard Weary Reilley. When he got that re-trial he should have been re-sentenced for life, instead of ten years. That poor girl he raped at our New Year’s Eve party is paralyzed for life. Reilly was one first hand skunk,” Red said vindictively.

“And you know at that party, he was a bastard, socking me when I was so plastered that I couldn’t stand up. He knew I licked him when we were kids, and he wouldn’t have had the guts to sock me if I was sober,” Studs said.

“That’s right, he broke your nose, didn’t he, Studs?” Red said innocently.

“Yeah. And it was the rottenest trick he ever pulled, getting me when I was maggoty drunk,” Studs protested.

“And Reilley came from such a decent family. He just about ruined them, too, I hear, with the expenses of his two trials,” McCarthy said.

“The family wasn’t so nice in court during the first trial.

His old lady cursed the poor paralyzed girl and spit in her face, and the sister, Fran, was so keen and such a teaser, she