“Got anyt’ing to say Murphy?”
Larry glowered at them in bovine fury. “I went into this mix,” declared he, his right hand beating upon his left, “to win! And we’re goin’ to win if we have to tear up the ward be the roots! McQuirk’s played a foxy game, and worked some of our people for rank suckers, see? But we’ll kick the props from under him and do him brown, d’ye hear? We’ll do him brown!”
“How?” ventured McGonagle.
“How? I don’t care a damn how we do it! We ain’t a’goin’ to let him play us for good t’ings, are we?”
“Let’s go see Daily,” suggested Goose.
McCarty looked at his watch. “It only wants a couple o’ minutes o’ one,” said he, “Daily’s snorin’ t’ beat the band by this time.”
“Not on yer life! He’s on the night shift this week,” said Larry. “We kin see him, all right. Come on, Goose.”
The two repassed through the parlour, almost unnoticed in the excitement, and down the stairs to the street. They headed eastward over Girard Avenue, their objective point being one of the iron mills that line the river front in Kensington.
Down a narrow street, under the light of the lamps, a dozen or more of men were swinging long-handled brooms; a pair of bony, dispirited horses followed in their track, their driver shovelling the heaps of rubbish into the cart. The scavengers droned a strange-sounding song as they worked; the watching overseer talked constantly, in a sharp, high tone; the horses hung their heads dejectedly and rattled at the chains of their harness.
“That’s some of McGlory’s night gang,” remarked Larry. “They start ’em out early since the loot reported dirty streets in the old man’s district.”