Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/381

Rh "Some one give 't to me."

She released him, to hitch her shawl about her shoulders. "That 's a lie fer yeh, Mickey. Yer father 'll hide yeh fer that."

She was a small, determined woman, harshly just as a judge, but as an executioner soft-hearted; and in her management of her little household she had always made her big husband execute her judgments on Mickey with a leather strap. "I won't," Flynn had said once. "Do yer own lickin'. D' yuh want to make the boy hate me? I b'lieve yuh do." She replied: "Yeh 'll do yer dooty as a f hther, er yeh 'll march out o' here now. Yer a dang poor husband—an' I 've stood fer that. But yeh 'll tend to Mickey, er I 'll have yeh hulkin' round here no longer. Take the strop!" And with the air of a Lady Macbeth, she had forced him to lift the figurative dagger.

Little Mickey had no fear of his father this night, but he pretended that he had. He allowed himself to be almost dragged to the shop door, and as soon as he was inside he bolted past Mrs. Flynn's sister—who had been tending the counter while Mrs. Flynn was away—and ran to hide himself in the little room in which he slept.

It was at the very back of the small suite of rooms in which the Flynns lived; and it was as dark as the robber captain's dungeon cell. But Mickey was not afraid of the dark; there had been no fond nursery nonsense in his education. He shut his door and took off all his outer clothing except his knickerbockers. Then he