Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/87

 possibility of his becoming a friend of William Grogan was more than ever remote. William was no fool; he understood that he had been smothered, side-tracked, left at the post; but he took his medicine without murmur.

He never looked into his likes and dislikes. They formed instantly. Being a philosopher in the rough, he had no determinate phrases by which to express himself upon the subject. He had "hunches." He was not infallible by any means, but the margin of his mistakes was remarkably small. His "hunch" in this particular case was that Camden was a little too "previous." The East Side vernacular had a synonym, and naturally William preferred it. Camden was a "shine." And somewhere along the route he was going to prove it to his individual satisfaction.

The idea that he had been put on board the Ajax by a special act of Providence to watch over this girl became more fixed, an obsession perhaps. He had drawn a Friar Tuck circle around her, and woe to the man who was unwise enough to step inside.

He turned in early that night. He was half asleep when his cabin-mates came in. Neither would see sixty again. Greenwood was generally irritable, while Clausen, the Dane, was invariably amiable. What little William had seen of them convinced him that they were as tough as rhinoceroses. Over sixty, and still going back to the deserts with shovels and sun-umbrellas! And what was it all about, anyhow? He gave it up.