Who of the river front police hadn’t heard of Skippy Dare’s bad throat? None that had patrolled the harbor during the past four months. Hadn’t it been because of his frail boy that Toby Dare had fought his prison sentence so hard? The papers had been full of it too.
“So the throat’s cutting up again, eh Skippy?” asked Inspector Jones. He was the same man who had taken Toby away from his son.
Skippy, always a bit wan looking when he lay in his bunk, looked more wan than ever then. His pallor was not simulated; it was terribly real, for he was not only frightened at the prospect of losing Big Joe; he was frightened because of the barefaced lie he had just told—the first in his life.
“I always gotta be careful of my throat, Mister,” he said to the officer when the worst of his emotion had passed. “’Specially when it gets cold. Sometimes I get fever right away an’ the doctor told Big Joe the last time that I gotta right away have attention.”
“Sure and the lad’s right,” Big Joe interposed with genuine feeling in his voice, “he’s got only me to be lookin’ after him now.”
“What you doing for a living, Big Joe?” asked the officer a little pointedly.
Big Joe stifled a yawn and sat down on a chair.
“Me?” he asked innocently. “Ye mean what’ll I do when the money I saved from me barge gives out, is it? With the way Flint blackballed me ’fore he died, I guess I’ll have to be workin’ out o’ the bay next summer, so I do.”
“Got enough for you and the kid till next summer?” the officer persisted.
“Sure and ’tis lucky I have, the way things be,” answered Big Joe.