uses have the front
ground floor divided into barroom and clothing-store, while in the rear
is the dining-room and upstairs the bedrooms, each with as many beds as
there is room for. Thus, a man may be housed, fed, clothed, drugged,
and shipped from the same address. The remedy for this has no place in
this story.

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 influen