Cully came out, but not in obedience to McGaw or Lathers. Indeed, he paid no more attention to either of those distinguished diplomats than if they had been two cement-barrels standing on end. His face, too, had lost its irradiating smile; not a wrinkle or a pucker ruffled its calm surface. His clay-soiled hat was in his hand--a very dirty hand, by the way, with the torn cuff of his shirt hanging loosely over it. His trousers bagged everywhere--at knees, seat, and waist. On his stockingless feet were a pair of sun-baked, brick-colored shoes. His ankles were as dark as mahogany. His throat and chest were bare, the skin tanned to leather wherever the sun could work its way through the holes in his garments. From out of this combination of dust and rags shone a pair of piercing black eyes, snapping with fun. “I come up fer de mont's pay,” he said coolly to Babcock, the corner of his eye glued to Lathers. “De ole woman said ye'd hev it ready.” “Mrs. Grogan's?” asked the bookkeeper, shuffling over his envelopes. “Yep. Tom Grogan.” “Can you sign the pay-roll?” “You bet”--with an eye still out for Lathers. “Where did you learn to write--at school?” asked Babcock, noting the boy's independence with undisguised pleasure. “Naw. Patsy an' me studies nights. Pop Mullins teaches us--he's de ole woman's farder what she brung out from Ireland. He's a-livin' up ter de shebang; dey're all a-livin' dere--Jinnie an' de ole woman an' Patsy--all 'cept me an' Carl. I bunks in wid de Big Gray. Say, mister, ye'd oughter git onter Patsy--he's de little kid wid de crutch. He's a corker, he is; reads po'try an' everythin'. Where'll I sign? Oh, I see; in dis'ere square hole right along-side de ole woman's name”--spreading his elbows, pen in hand, and affixing “James Finnegan” to the collection of autographs. The next moment he was running along the dock, the money envelope tight in his hand, sticking out his tongue at McGaw, and calling to Lathers as he disappeared through the door in the fence, “Somp'n wid a mustache, somp'n wid a mustache,” like a news-boy calling an extra. Then a stone grazed Lathers's ear. Lathers sprang through the gate, but the boy was half way through the yard. It was this flea-like alertness that always saved Mr. Finnegan's scalp. Once out of Lathers's reach, Cully bounded up the road like a careering letter X, with arms and legs in air. If there was any one thing that delighted the boy's soul, it was, to quote from his own picturesque vocabulary, “to set up a job on de ole woman.” Here was his chance. Before he reached the stable he had planned the whole scene, even to the exact intonation of Lathers's voice when he referred to the dearth of mustaches in the Grogan household. Within a few minutes of his arrival the details of the whole occurrence, word for word, with such picturesque additions as his own fertile imagination could invent, were common talk about the yard.