"That'll do!" warned Big Tom. He had found the pipe, and now came a step nearer to her. "Y'd better keep y'r mouth shut, young lady!"
"Don't talk, Cis! Don't!" begged Johnnie, half whispering.
"I will talk!" she declared. "All the years I've been here I've wanted to tell him what I think of him. And now I'm going to!—I am a young lady. You great, big coward!"
He struck her with the flat of one heavy hand. But as she instantly struggled, and frantically, throwing herself this way and that, and almost overturning the table upon herself, the longshoreman thought better of continuing the punishment, and crossed to the sink to empty his pipe.
Again Cis fell to sobbing, and talking as she wept. "I'm going to see that Father Pat knows about this," she threatened. "And everybody in the whole neighborhood, too! They'll drive you out of this part of town—you see if they don't! And, oh, wait till One-Eye knows, and Mr. Perkins!"
It was just then, as she paused for breath, that something happened which was unexpected, unforeseen, and terrible in its results. The longshoreman, to empty his pipe, rapped once on that pipe leading down into the sink from Mrs. Kukor's flat—then twice more—then once again.
It was the book signal!
Johnnie gasped. And Cis stopped crying, turning on him a look that was full of frightened inquiry. He tipped back his head, to stare at the ceiling as if striving to see through it, and he held his breath, listening. During the quarrel, he had not thought of Mrs. Kukor, nor heard any sound from above. Was she at home? Oh, he hoped she was not! or that she had not heard!
But she was at home, and was preparing to obey the raps. Her rocking steps could be heard, crossing the floor.
"Johnnie!" warned Cis. She forgot herself now, in remembering what might be threatening.