Page:Hopkinson Smith--Tom Grogan.djvu/51

 bills of lading in full, but it don't work for a cent.”

“You call her Tom Grogan?” Babcock asked, with a certain tone in his voice. He resented, somehow, Crane's familiarity.

“Certainly. Everybody calls her Tom Grogan. It's her husband's name. Call her anything else, and she don't answer. She seems to glory in it, and after you know her a while you don't want to call her anything else yourself. It comes kind of natural—like your calling a man 'colonel' or 'judge.”

Babcock could not but admit that Crane might be right. All the names which could apply to a woman who had been sweetheart, wife, and mother seemed out of place when he thought of this undaunted spirit who had defied Lathers, and with one blow of her fist sent the splinters of a fence flying about his head.

“We've got the year's contract for coal at the fort,” continued Crane. “The quarter-master-sergeant who inspects it—Sergeant Duffy—has a friend named McGaw who wants to do the unloading into the government bins. There's a low price on the coal, and there's no margin for anybody; and if