Tired of that, he rolled a cigarette with one hand, and
swiftly. Pete's hands were compact, of medium size, with the finger
joints lightly defined--the hands of a conjuror--or, as The Spider
thought, of a born gunman. And Pete was always doing something with
his hands, even when apparently oblivious to everything around him. A
novice at reading men would have considered him nervous. He was far
from nervous. This was proven to The Spider's satisfaction when Malvey
entered--"Bull" Malvey, red-headed, bluff and huge, of a gaunt frame,
with large-knuckled hands and big feet. Malvey tossed a coin on the
bar noisily, and in that one act Pete read him for what he was--a man
who "bullied" his way through life with much bluster and profanity, but
a man who, if he boasted, would make good his boast. What appeared to
be hearty good-nature in Malvey was in reality a certain blatantly
boisterous vigor--a vigor utterly soulless, and masking a nature at
bottom as treacherous as The Spider's--but in contrast squalid and
mean. Malvey would steal five dollars. The Spider would not touch a
job for less than five hundred.
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