“Fat’s such an ass,” he remarked.
McBride smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“He does love to hear himself talk,” he chuckled. “He likes it almost as well as eating. Still, of course there is a little something in what he said. I suppose we might broaden out some without hurting ourselves. A roughneck like Garrity would be the limit, but this—”
He broke off with an exclamation of interest. “There he is now!”
“Huh? What—who?”
“That Tallerico kid over there in front of the old Jessup house.”
Cavvy frowned and glanced quickly across the street. Their short cut home took them through the older portion of town—a region of ancient, tumble-down houses, once the abode of wealth and fashion, but long since given over to laborers and workmen in the mines.
Amongst these dingy, decrepit tenements the Jessup house stood forth with a faded, forlorn distinction. In its simple, dignified proportions, in the graceful fanlight above the door, and in certain delicate bits of molding and carving, there remained traces of the colonial mansion where General Washington had slept more than once in the early winters of the Revolution.
On the threshold, one hand resting on the latch, stood a boy of fourteen or so, short, square-built, with dark, wavy hair and olive skin warmly tinged with red. His lips were half parted and his dark eyes rested eagerly on the faces of the two across the street, whom he had apparently just noticed. But as their glances quickly shifted, a shadow swept across his face and jerking open the door, he disappeared within.
Cavanaugh felt a sudden twinge of conscience, and to elude it he burst into abrupt denunciation.