"Where did you learn to write--at school?" asked Babcock, noting
the boy's independence with undisguised pleasure.

"Naw. Patsy an' me studies nights. Pop Mullins teaches us--he's
de ole woman's farder what she brung out from Ireland. He's
a-livin' up ter de shebang; dey're all a-livin' dere--Jinnie an'
de ole woman an' Patsy--all 'cept me an' Carl. I bunks in wid de
Big Gray. Say, mister, ye'd oughter git onter Patsy--he's de
little kid wid de crutch. He's a corker, he is; reads po'try an'
everythin'. Where'll I sign? Oh, I see; in dis'ere square hole
right along-side de ole woman's name"--spreading his elbows, pen
in hand, and affixing "James Finnegan" to the collection of
autographs. The next moment he was running along the dock, the
money envelope tight in his hand, sticking out his tongue at
McGaw, and calling to Lathers as he disappeared through the door
in the fence, "Somp'n wid a mustache, somp'n wid a mustache," like
a news-boy calling an extra. Then a stone grazed Lathers's ear.

Lathers sprang through the gate, but the boy was half way through
the yard. It was this flea-like alertness that always saved Mr.
Finnegan's scalp.

Once out of Lathers's reach, Cully bounded up the road like a
careering letter X, with arms and legs in air. If there was any
one thing that delighted the boy's soul, it was, to quote from his
own picturesque vocabulary, "to set up a job on de ole woman."
Here was his chance. Before he reached the stable he had planned
the whole scene, even to the exact intonation of Lathers's voice
when he referred to the dearth of mustaches in the Grogan