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 Mister Lathers about doin' yer wurruk,” began McGaw, resting one foot on a pile of barrow-planks, his elbow on his knee. “I does all the haulin' to the foort. Surgint Duffy knows me. I wuz along here las' week, an' see ye wuz put back fer stone. If I'd had the job, I'd had her unloaded two days befoore.” “You're dead right, Dan,” said Lathers, with an expression of disgust. “This woman business ain't no good, nohow. She ought to be over her tubs.” “She does her work, though,” Babcock said, beginning to see the drift of things. “Oh, I don't be sayin' she don't. She's a dacint woman, anough; but thim b'ys as is a-runnin' her carts is raisin' h--ll all the toime.”