household. Within a few minutes of his arrival the details of the
whole occurrence, word for word, with such picturesque additions
as his own fertile imagination could invent, were common talk
about the yard.

Lathers meanwhile had been called upon to direct a gang of
laborers who were moving an enormous iron buoy-float down the
cinder-covered path to the dock. Two of the men walked beside the
buoy, steadying it with their hands. Lathers was leaning against
the board fence of the shop whittling a stick, while the others
worked.

Suddenly there was an angry cry for Lathers, and every man stood
still. So did the buoy and the moving truck.

With head up, eyes blazing, her silk hood pushed back from her
face, as if to give her air, her gray ulster open to her waist,
her right hand bare of a glove, came Tom Grogan, brushing the men
out of her way.

"I knew I'd find you, Pete Lathers," she said, facing him
squarely; "why do ye want to be takin' the bread out of me
children's mouths?"

The stick dropped from Lathers's hand: "Well, who said I did?
What have I got to do with your"--

"You've got enough to do with 'em, you and your friend McGaw, to
want 'em to starve. Have I ever hurt ye that ye should try an'
sneak me business away from me? Ye know very well the fight I've