Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/235

 lengths such men would go in pursuit of their mad pleasures.

William sloughed off a considerable quantity of veneer that morning. He wanted to beat something, crush and pound. A deck-hand accidentally bumped against him, and William turned upon him with a snarl so baldly savage that the poor devil jumped back, spilling his bucket.

"Beg pardon, sir; beg pardon!"

"Look where you're going!"

William, realizing that he must find something upon which to vent his rage, opened the door to the gymnasium, threw aside his bath-robe, and began hammering the bag. For half an hour the thunder of it could be heard all over the deck. It was childish; no one would grant that more readily than William himself. Not half a dozen times in his life had such murderous rage laid hold of him. So it was far better to rid himself of it in this childish manner than to carry it around simmering in his heart. By the time he had got out of his tub he was normal enough to feel ashamed of himself.

He would say nothing to Ruth. Why worry her? She believed—or at least she pretended to believe—that that chapter in her life had been turned down. And it was his self-appointed task to see that it remained turned down. But in failing to disclose his discovery to Ruth he made a terrible mistake, one which was o cause him ten days of the most indescribable misery he was ever to know.