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A boarding-master, or crimp, without the machinery, becomes a shipping-master, a go-between between the skipper and the boarding-master, whose income is the blood-money paid by skippers for men. Murphy, strolling along South Street a few days later, saw a new sign over a doorway–Timothy Hennesey, Shipping-Master. He ascended the wooden stairs, and in a dingy room with one desk and chair found his former aid.

“Well, what the hill is this, Hennesey–tryin’ to take the brid out of honest min’s mouths?”

“I’ve me livin’ to make, Murphy, an’ I’m a-doin’ it. I got the crew of the Albatross.”

“An’ what did ye do wid ’em?”

“Put ’em wid Stillman, over beyant. Ye might ha’ had ’em had ye played fair.”

Stillman was Murphy’s most important rival, and the news did not cheer him. He glared darkly at Hennesey.

“An’ I’ve got the shippin’ o’ Williams’s new crew whin he sails,” continued Hennesey, “an’ I’ll not go to you for ’em, Murphy.”

“Ye’ll not?” responded Murphy, luridly. “After all the wark I’ve given ye.”

“I’ll not. I told ye I’d git yer business, an’ I’ll do it.”

Murphy’s fist shot out and Hennesey went down. Arising with bleeding nose, he shook his small fist at his chuckling assailant passing sidewise out of his door.

“I’ll not forgit thot, John Murphy,” he spluttered.

“I don’t want ye to. Remember it while ye live; an’ there’s more where thot cum from, too, ye scab.”

At a meeting of the brotherhood that evening, Murphy posted the name of Timothy Hennesey, scab, and Captain Williams, outlaw; then, somewhat easier in his mind, took account of the immediate business situation. It was bad; he had three cash boarders, of no use when their money was gone, as they signed in coasters, and there was but one ship in port, the Albatross, and none expected for a fortnight. So, leaving orders with his wife to watch the cash register in the bar, and to evict the boarders when they asked for trust, he took the train for Chicago, where lived a prosperous brother, for whom he had a sincere regard, and to whom he owed a long-promised visit. Brother Mike welcomed him, and under the softening influence of brotherly love he forgave Hennesey, but not Williams. It is so much easier to warm toward a fellow man you have punched than toward one who has punched you.

Mike took John down to his coal-docks, with which he was amassing a fortune, and explained their workings. A schooner lay at one, and his gang was unloading her. It was a cold day in November, and their warm overcoats felt none too warm; yet down in the hold of the schooner were men bare to the waist, black as negroes with coal dust, save where the perspiration cleared white channels as it ran down their backs and breasts–keeping themselves warm with the violence of their exertions. There were two to each of the three hatches; and there were six others on the dock runway, wheeling the coal away; they had nearly unloaded the schooner, having cleared away the coal directly under the hatch, and were now loading their buckets at the two piles farther back, between the hatches. These buckets stood as high as their waists, and held, according to Brother Mike, five hundred pounds when full. But a man, having filled it to the brim, would seize the bale and drag it along the flooring to the hatch, unhook a descending bucket, hook on the full one, sing out an inarticulate cry, and drag the empty back to the coal to be filled in its turn–all with a never-lessening display of extravagant muscular force.

“Heavens! what wark!” said John, as they peered down the hatch. “An’ how long do they kape this up?”

“Tin hours a day, and not a minute longer,” answered Mike; “that is, barrin’ fifteen minutes at tin in the mornin’ and three in the afternoon, whin they knock off for a bite and a drink up at me place on the corner. They go up and ate up me free lunch and soak in about a pint of whisky at one drink.”