Mike's Little Brother

Michael Burke and his brother Tim had journeyed from Skibbereen to the land where the dollar bills grow on trees, without any definite idea what they were going to do when they arrived there; and New York had handled such promising material in its best manner. Michael it had given to the ranks of the police. Tim it had spirited away. Utterly and absolutely he had vanished. Michael had left Ellis Island while Tim was still there. ÒAnd divil a sign,Ó said he, swinging his club sadly, Òhave I seen of me little brother from that day on.Ó

We were patrolling Merlin Street, on the East Side, together, one night when he first told me the story. I was the smallest of all possible reporters on The Manhattan Daily Chronicle at the time, and my most important duty was to cover the Windle Market police-station, which is within a stoneÕs throw of Merlin Street. It was there that I had met Michael; and when matters were quiet at the station, I would accompany him on his beat, and we would talk of many things, but principally of his little brother Tim. As the days went on, I must have heard the story fifty times. In the telling it sometimes varied, according to MichaelÕs mood. Sometimes it would be long and unrestrainedly pathetic. At other times it would have all the brevity of an official report. But it always ended in the same way. ÒAnd divil a sign,Ó Mike would say, Òhave I seen of me little brother from that time on.Ó

My imagination got to work on the thing. I liked Michael, and the contrast between his words and his granite, expressionless face appealed to me. It was not long before I began to build up in my mindÕs eye a picture of the vanished Tim. Each night some remark of MikeÕs would add another touch to the portrait. Why I got the idea that Tim was delicate I do not know. I suppose it came from MikeÕs insistence on the epithet Òlittle.Ó At any rate, Tim to me was a slightly-built boy, curly-haired, blue-eyed and pale. Not unlike little Lord Fauntleroy, grown up. Sometimes he had a cough.

There were nights in the hot weather when Mike would be despondent. A New York summer night does not encourage optimism. Tim was dead. He was sure of it. He had made inquiries and had found that a Timothy Bourke, released from Ellis Island at about that time, had found employment helping to construct the Subway. ÒThis Timothy Bourke, working in compressed air in casement under the water, had taken that horrible form of paralysis known as the Òbends,Ó and had died.