He was a small man with a big nose, grizzled chin-whiskers, and rum-and-watery eyes, and wore constantly a pair of patched blue overalls as a badge of his laborship. The seat of these outside trousers showed more wear than his hands. Immediately upon his appointment, Crimmins went to McGaw's house to talk over the line of attack. The conference was held in the sitting-room and behind closed doors--so tightly closed that young Billy McGaw, with one eye in mourning from the effect of a recent street fight, was unable, even by the aid of the undamaged eye and the keyhole, to get the slightest inkling of what was going on inside. When the door was finally opened and McGaw and Crimmins came out, they brought with them an aroma the pungency of which was explained by two empty glasses and a black bottle decorating one end of the only table in the room. As Crimmins stepped down from the broken stoop, with its rusty rain-spout and rotting floor-planks, Billy overheard this parting remark from his father: “Thry the ile furst, Crimmy, an' see what she'll do; thin give her the vinegar; and thin,” with an oath, “ef that don't fetch'er, come back here to me and we'll give 'er the red pepper.” Brother Knight Crimmins waved his hand to the speaker. “Just leave'er to me, Dan,” he said, and started for Tom's house. Crimmins was delighted with his mission. He felt sure of bringing back her application within an hour. Nothing ever pleased him so much as to work a poor woman into an agony of fright with threats of the Union. Wives and daughters had often followed him out into the street, begging him to let the men alone for another week until they could pay the rent. Sometimes, when he relented, the more grateful would bless him for his magnanimity. This increased his self-respect. Tom met him at the door. She had been sitting up with a sick child of Dick Todd, foreman at the brewery, and had just come home. Hardly a week passed without some one in distress sending for her. She had never seen Crimmins before, and thought he had come to mend the roof. His first words, however, betrayed him:-- “The Knights sent me up to have a word wid ye.” Tom made a movement as if to shut the door in his face; then she paused for an instant, and said curtly, “Come inside.” Crimmins crushed his slouch-hat in his hand, and slunk into a chair by the window. Tom remained standing. “I see ye like flowers, Mrs. Grogan,” he began, in his gentlest voice. “Them geraniums is the finest I iver see”--peering under the leaves of the plants. “Guess it's 'cause ye water 'em so much.” Tom made no reply. Crimmins fidgeted on his chair a little, and tried another tack. “I s'pose ye ain't doin' much just now, weather's so bad. The road's awful goin' down to the fort.”