McGaw, however, was desperate. He denounced Tom in a vocabulary peculiar to himself and full of innuendoes and oaths, but without offering any suggestion as to how his threats against her might be carried out.
With his usual slyness, Quigg said very little openly. He had not yet despaired of winning Jennie's favor, and until that hope was abandoned he could hardly make up his mind which side of the fence he was on. Crimmins was even more indifferent in regard to the outcome—his pay as walking delegate went on, whichever side won; he could wait.
In this emergency McGaw again sought Crimmins's assistance. He urged the importance of his getting the contract, and he promised to make Crimmins foreman on the street, and to give him a share in the profits, if he would help him in some way to get the work now. The first step, he argued, was the necessity of crushing Tom. Everything else would be easy after that. Such a task, he felt, would not be altogether uncongenial to Crimmins, still smarting under Tom's contemptuous treatment of him the day he called upon her in his capacity of walking delegate.
McGaw's tempting promise made a deep impression upon Crimmins. He determined then and there to inflict some blow on Tom Grogan from which she could never recover. He was equally determined on one other thing—not to be caught.
Early the next morning Crimmins stationed himself outside O'Leary's where he could get an uninterrupted view of two streets. He stood hunched up against the jamb of O'Leary's door in the attitude of a corner loafer, with three parts of his body touching the wood—hip, shoulder, and cheek. For some time no one appeared in sight either useful or inimical to his plans, until Mr. James Finnegan, who was filling the morning air with one of his characteristic songs, brightened the horizon up the street to his left.
Cully's unexpected appearance at that moment produced so uncomfortable an effect upon Mr. Crimmins that that gentleman fell instantly back through the barroom door.
The boy's quick eye caught the movement, and it also caught a moment later, Mr. Crimmins's nose and watery eye peering out again when their owner had assured himself that his escape had been unseen. Cully slackened his pace to see what new move Crimmins would make—but without the slightest sign of recognition on his face—and again broke into song. He was on his way to get the mail, and had passed McGaw's house but a few moments before, in the hope that that worthy Knight might be either leaning over the fence or seated on the broken-down porch. He was anxious McGaw should hear a few improvised stanzas of a new ballad he had composed to that delightful old negro melody, “Massa's in de cold, cold ground,” in which the much-beloved Southern planter and the thoroughly hated McGaw changed places in the cemetery.
That valiant Knight was still in bed, exhausted by the labors of the previous evening. Young Billy, however, was about the stables, and so Mr. James Finnegan took occasion to tarry long enough in the road for the eldest son of his enemy to get the stanza by heart, in the hope that he might retail it to his father when he appeared.
Billy dropped his manure-fork as soon as Cully had moved on again, and dodging behind the fence, followed him toward the post-office, hoping to hit the singer with a stone.
When the slinking body of McGaw's eldest son became visible to Mr. Crimmins, his face broke into creases so nearly imitative of a smile that his best friend would not have known him. He slapped the patched knees of his overalls gayly, bent over in a subdued chuckle, and disported himself in a merry and much satisfied way. His rum-and-watery eyes gleamed with delight, and even his chin-whisker took on a new vibration. Next he laid one finger along his nose, looked about him cautiously, and said to himself, in an undertone:—