Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/60

 friendships these would be by-products purely. After all, old Mother Hanlon would be glad to see him back. And wouldn't the rest of the bunch sit up and take notice when he began to gab-fest! "When I was in Hong-Kong I licked four chinks one night." Think of starting the fire in that offhand manner!

All at once he remembered why he had gone down into the shed and taken his place by the gang-plank. He wanted to see if that girl came on board alone. He hoped she would. She looked too nice to be mixed up in anything shady. Funny thing, he mused, how you could spot a woman who was off-color. You couldn't give your reasons; there wasn't any way of explaining it; you just knew, that was all. This girl didn't look the part, and that was all there was to it.

She came into view at length. He sighed relievedly. There was no one with her. Lonesome kind like himself. She walked confidently to the gang-plank, looking neither right nor left. Her face was lighted by subdued eagerness; there was neither anxiety in her eyes nor dissatisfaction on her lips. William dropped in behind her, rather automatically.

A well-dressed man, a fat suit-case in each hand, crowded past him rudely. William stretched out a detaining hand, none the less powerful because the nails shone pinkly.

"Say, bo, why the unseemly haste?"

"Beg pardon!" mumbled the offender, none too politely, as he wrenched himself loose and went on.