ar
their delegate, their servant, talk mysteriously of the doings of the
council, and so well did Grady manage this air of mystery that each man
thought it assumed because of the presence of others, but that he himself
was of the inner circle. They would not have dreamed of questioning his
acts in meeting or after, as they stood about the dingy, reeking hall over
Barry's saloon. It was only as they went to their lodgings in groups of
two and three that they told how much better they could manage things
themselves.

Bannon enjoyed his last conversation with Grady, though it left him a good
deal to think out afterward. He had acted quite deliberately, had said
nothing that afterward he wished unsaid; but as yet he had not decided
what to do next. After he heard the door slam behind the little delegate,
he walked back into his room, paced the length of it two or three times,
then put on his ulster and went out. He started off aimlessly, paying no
attention to whither he was going, and consequently he walked straight to
the elevator. He picked his way across the C. & S. C. tracks, out to the
wharf, and seated himself upon an empty nail keg not far from the end of
the spouting house.

He sat there for a long while, heedless of all that was doing about him,
turning the situation over and over in his mind. Like a good strategist,
he was planning Grady's campaign as carefully as his own. Finally he was
recalled to his material surroundings by a rough voice which commanded,
"Get off that keg and clear out. We don't allow no loafers around here."

Turning, Bannon recognized one of the under-foremen. "That's a good idea,"
he said. "Are you making a regular patrol, or did you just happen to see
me?"

"I didn't know it was you. No, I'm tending to some work here in the
spouting house."

"Do you know where Mr. Peterson is?"

"He was right up here a bit ago. Do you want to see him?"

"Yes, if he isn't busy. I'm not the only loafer here, it seems," added
Bannon, nodding toward where the indistinct figures of a man and a woman
could be seen corning slowly toward them along the narrow strip of wharf
between the building and the water. "Never mind," he added, as the foreman
made a step in their direction, "I'll look after them myself."

The moment after he had called the foreman's attention to them he had
recognized them as Hilda and Max. He walked over to meet them. "We can't
get enough of it in the daytime, can we."

"It's a g