Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/81

Life's Loaded Die were regularly sent home with puffed checks and watery eyes. The Shanghai Sharkey, for his lessons in the manly art, entered into a contract which ordained that once a day he should polish the brass window rods of his tutor's saloon.

But in this world every rose has its thorn, and every Klondike its Chilkoot. The Shanghai Sharkey, for all his conquests, with all his admirers, and all his fame, was far from being inwardly happy. He was an impostor. In the bottom of his own heart he knew he was a sham and a deception. He was not the thing he pretended to be, and the irony of it all weighed heavily on his heart.

The skeleton in the Shanghai Sharkey's closet was nothing more nor less than a Baby. Over this Baby his spirit brooded with a tenderness that was almost maternal. As a fighting man he knew well enough he should be above all such things! But try as he might, he could not help entertaining a secret and passionate love for this same little shred of humanity, which came unexpectedly into his home one memorable day. As a Sharkey it 69