Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/89

Life's Loaded Die sudden look of fierce rebellion that mounted the boy's face, and discreetly stopped in the doorway a minute or two to enlarge on the blessedness of filial duty, and hoped "as he was n't a boy as would n't listen to his muther's dyin' wish—or, leastways, almost dyin' wish!"

The Shanghai Sharkey, after that scene, spent a sleepless night. In the throes of that midnight struggle he learned for the first time that the biggest battles of this life are not fought with fists. That knowledge is never good for a pugilist.

In the morning, when he was feeding the Baby, he sighed heavily once or twice. It was a hard world. But in his eyes there was a new light.

With that new light in his eyes and with set jaws, he slowly and deliberately arranged two pillows in the little baby-carriage he had so lovingly made, and over them spread a blanket. With a tenderness quite new to him, and a deftness strange to his gnarled and stubby little fingers, he lifted the Baby into the outlandish cart, and carefully fixed a 77