When the boat touched the shore, he sprang over the chains, and
hurried through the ferry-slip.

"Keep an eye out, sir," the bridge-tender called after him,--he
had been directing him to Grogan's house,--"perhaps Tom may be on
the road."

Then it suddenly occurred to Babcock that, so far as he could
remember, he had never seen Mr. Thomas Grogan, his stevedore. He
knew Grogan's name, of course, and would have recognized his
signature affixed to the little cramped notes with which his
orders were always acknowledged, but the man himself might have
passed unnoticed within three feet of him. This is not unusual
where the work of a contractor lies in scattered places, and he
must often depend on strangers in the several localities.

As he hurried over the road he recalled the face of Grogan's
foreman, a big blond Swede, and that of Grogan's daughter, a
slender fair-haired girl, who once came to the office for her
father's pay; but all efforts at reviving the lineaments of Grogan
failed.

With this fact clear in his mind, he felt a tinge of
disappointment. It would have relieved his temper to unload a
portion of it upon the offending stevedore. Nothing cools a man's
wrath so quickly as not knowing the size of the head he intends to
hit.

As he approached near enough to the sea-wall to distinguish the