Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/98

 The ten thousand metropolitan police would have been notified, along with William Burns. Perhaps he misjudged himself. The loss of money alone would not have started him on the hunt; but it went conceivably against the grain of the Grogans to let a man hold him up and get away with it scatheless. Here on board it was different, to be sure. There were no police. If he notified the purser, the poor devils in the steerage would come in for some unpleasant interrogations.

He stood up and tried the joint. "That's better. The liniment is cool."

"You're a husky chap," said the doctor, admiringly, and he gave William a friendly tap in the small of the back.

"M'm!" William grunted.

"What's the matter?"

"Another sore spot, I guess."

Camden laughed. "Make him strip, doctor. Something fishy about this reluctance."

"Aw, I tell you nothing happened."

"Strip, young man," ordered the doctor.

"Come on, now; we've got to look into this. I want to locate that grunt."

Grumbling, William stripped to the waist. Camden whistled softly.

"Man," cried the doctor, "you've the torso of a Sharkey! H'm! Slight discoloration over the kidneys." The doctor fondled his chin thoughtfully. "I should say, Mr. Grogan, that you'd had a bit of jiu-jitsu. I was on the P. & O. line once. I used to run into a good deal of it among the