Chapter 5 - Page 2

the women, saying: "Come up to the house when you escape, Mr. O'Neil. I shall have dinner served."

Mr. Slater came forward slowly, dragging his clothes-bag with him. The two shook hands.

"What in the world are you doing here, Tom?"

"Nothing!" said Slater. He had a melancholy cast of feature, utterly out of keeping with his rotund form. In his eye was the somber glow of a soul at war with the flesh.

"Nothing?"

"I had a good job, putting in a power plant for his nibs"--he indicated the retreating Gordon with a disrespectful jerk of the thumb--"but I quit."

"Not enough pay?"

"Best wages I ever got. He pays well."

"Poor grub?"

"Grub's fine."

"What made you quit?"

"I haven't exactly quit, but I'm going to. When I saw you coming up the dock I said: 'There's the chief! Now he'll want me.' So I began to pack." The speaker dangled his partly filled war-bag as evidence. In an even sourer tone he murmured:

"Ain't that just me? I ain't had a day's luck since Lincoln was shot. The minute I get a good job along you come and spoil it."

"I don't want you," laughed O'Neil.

But Slater was not convinced. He shook his head.

"Oh yes, you do. You've got something on or you wouldn't be here. I've been drawing pay from you now for over five minutes."

O'Neil made a gesture of impatience.

"No! No! In the first place, I have nothing for you to do; in the second place, I probably couldn't afford the wages Gordon is paying you."

"That's the hell of it!" gloomily agreed "Happy Tom." "Where are your grips? I'll begin by carrying them."

"I haven't any. I've been shipwrecked. Seriously, Tom, I have no place for you."

The repetition of this statement made not the smallest impression upon the hearer.

"You'll have one soon enough," he replied. Then with a touch of spirit, "Do you think I'd work for this four-flusher if you were in the country?"

"Hush!" O'Neil cast a glance over his shoulder. "By the way, how do you happen to be here? I thought you were in Dawson."

"I finished that job. I was working back toward ma and the children. I haven't seen them for two years."

"You think Gordon is a false alarm?"

"Happy Tom" spat with unerring accuracy at a crack, then said:

"He's talking railroads! Railroads! Why, I've got a boy back in the state of Maine, fourteen years old--"

"Willie?"

"Yes. My son Willie could skin Curtis Gordon at railroad- building--and Willie is the sickly one of the outfit.