Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/226

214 "I will not," he said. "It 's a free country, an' I 'll talk me mouthful—if I want to."

Barney explained, to the girl: "Uncle Mike 's the Hon'rable Michael Maloney, member o' Congress fer the distric', an' hon'ry vice-president o' the Dry Dimers." He winked at her, as much as to say: "Watch me get a rise out o' th' ol' man."

She turned expectantly to the father. "Hon'rable nothin'!" he snorted. "'Sheeny Mike'—that 's what I call 'm to his fat face, an' it 's good enough fer him."

He was a thin and withered old Celt, the skin of his face fitted to the bones without the plumpness of any flesh beneath, his lips like some soft leather that had been slit over the toothless aperture of his mouth. He drew them up in a sour pucker of tanned hide. "'Sheeny Mike!' Me own brother!"

"Agh, let be!" his wife said. "We 're all sick o' such like talk as that!"

"Are yeh so!" he cried. "Thin it 's you an' Tim that 'd lick the boots o' the man that put me down."

"'T was him that got yeh yer job on the light."

"Yes—thinkin' he 'd stop me mouth! I know! 'm. I know Mike. 'T was to shut me mouth he did it—nothin' ilse. An' he won't shut it fer all o' that!" The barge had begun to move out from its dock, and the sunlight on the water shone in his eyes. He blinked at it angrily, under the rim of a stiff felt hat that was faded to a yellowish green. "Me stuck out in the water, with the light, like an oold duck on a rock! An'