Page:Hopkinson Smith--Tom Grogan.djvu/43

 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 made, standin' out on this dock, many a day an' night, in the cold an' wet, with nothin' between Tom's children an' the street but these two hands—an' yet ye'd slink in like a dog to get me”—

“Here, now, I ain't a-goin' to have no row,” said Lathers, twitching his shoulders. “It's against orders, an' I'll call the yard-