nd its one glass window, secured by a ten-penny nail, the
shanty had a flap-window, hinged at the bottom. When this was propped
up with a barrel stave it made a counter from which to pay the men, the
paymaster standing inside.

Babcock was sitting on a keg of dock spikes inside this working
shanty some days after he had discovered Tom's identity, watching his
bookkeeper preparing the pay-roll, when a face was thrust through the
square of the window. It was not a prepossessing face, rather pudgy and
sleek, with uncertain, drooping mouth, and eyes that always looked over
one's head when he talked. It was the property of Mr. Peter Lathers, the
yardmaster of the depot.

"When you're done payin' off maybe you'll step outside, sir," he said,
in a confiding tone. "I got a friend of mine who wants to know you. He's
a stevedore, and does the work to the fort. He's never done nothin' for
you, but I told him next time you come down I'd fetch him over. Say,
Dan!" beckoning with his head over his shoulder; then, turning to
Babcock,--"I make you acquainted, sir, with Mr. Daniel McGaw."

Two faces now filled the window--Lathers's and that of a red-headed man
in a straw hat.

"All right. I'll attend to you in a moment. Glad to see you, Mr. McGaw,"
said Babcock, rising from the keg, and looking over his bookkeeper's
shoulder.

Lathers's friend proved to be a short, big-boned, square-shouldered
Irishman, about forty years of age, dressed in a once black broadcloth
suit with frayed buttonholes, the lapels and vest covered with
grease-spots. Around his collar, which had done service for several
days, was twisted a red tie decorated with a glass pin. His face was
spattered with blue powder-marks, as if from some quarry explosion. A
lump of a mustache dyed dark brown concealed his upper lip, making all
the more conspicuous the bushy, sandy-colored eyebrows that shaded a
pair of treacherous eyes. His mouth was coarse and filled with teeth
half worn off, like those of an old horse. When he smiled these opened
slowly like a vise. Whatever of humor played about this opening lost its
life instantly when these jaws clicked together again.

The hands were big and strong, wrinkled and seamed, their rough backs
spotted like a toad's, the wrists covered with long spidery hairs.

Babcock noticed particularly his low, flat forehead when he removed his
hat, and the dry, red hair growing close to the eyebrows.

"I wuz a-sp'akin' to me fri'nd Mist