ike a nose. But with Monday, again the nose
took on that personality; and seemed to be crouching and writhing at the
center of its mat of stubble.

But Barber's mouth was his worst feature, with its great, pushed-out
underlip, which showed his complete satisfaction in himself. So big was
that lip that it seemed to have acquired its size through the robbing of
the chin just beneath--for Big Tom had little enough chin.

But his neck was massive, and an angry red, sprinkled with long, wiry
hairs. It fastened his flat-backed head to a body that was like a
gorilla's, thick and wide and humped. And his arms gave an added touch
of the animal, for they were so long that his great palms reached to his
knees; and so sprung out at the shoulder, and so curved in at the wrist,
that when they met at the fingers they formed a pair of mammoth,
muscled tongs--tongs that gave Barber his boasted value in and out of
ships.

His legs were big, too. As he stood over Johnnie now, it was plain to
see where the boy's shaggy trousers had come from (the grotesquely big
shirt as well). Each of those legs was almost as big as Johnnie's
skimped little body. And they turned up at the bottom in great broganned
feet that Barber was fond of using as instruments of punishment. More
than once Johnnie had felt those feet. And if he could ever have decided
how pain was to be inflicted upon him, he would always have chosen the
long, thick, pliant strap that belted in, and held together, his baggy
clothes. For the strap left colorful tracks that stung only in the
making; but the mark of one of those feet went black, and ached to the
bone.

Johnnie hated Big Tom worse than he hated his own yellow hair. But he
feared him, too. And now listened attentively as the longshoreman, his
cutty pipe smoking in one knotted fist, his dinner pail in the other,
his cargo hook slung to his burly neck, glowered down upon him.

"Git your dishes done," admonished Barber. "Don't let the mush dry on
'em, and draw the flies."

There being no question to answer, Johnnie said nothing. Final orders of
a morning were the usual thing. If he was careful not to reply, if he
waited, taking care where he looked, the longshoreman would have his say
out and go--pressed by time. So the boy, almost holding his breath,
fastened his eyes upon a patch of wall where the smudged plaster was
broken and some laths showed. And not a muscle of him moved, except one
big toe, which he curled and u