“Shackford had no call to lay hands on him.”

“There you are wrong, Durgin,” replied Stevens.  “Torrini had no call in the yard; he was making a nuisance of himself.  Shackford spoke to him, and told him to go, and when he didn’t go Shackford put him out; and he put him out handsomely,—­’with neatness and dispatch,’ as Slocum’s prospectuses has it.”

“He was right all the time,” said Piggott.  “He didn’t strike Torrini before or after he was down, and stood at the gate like a gentleman, ready to give Torrini his chance if he wanted it.”

“Torrini didn’t want it,” observed Jemmy Willson.  “Ther’ isn’t nothing mean about Torrini.”

“But he ’ad a dozen minds about coming back,” said Denyven.

“We ought to have got him out of the place quietly,” said Jeff Stavers; “that was our end of the mistake.  He is not a bad fellow, but he shouldn’t drink.”

“He was crazy to come to the yard.”

“When a man ’as a day off,” observed Denyven, “and the beer isn’t narsty, he ’ad better stick to the public ’ouse.”

“Oh, you!” exclaimed Durgin.  “Your opinion don’t weigh.  You took a black eye of him.”

“Yes, I took a black heye,—­and I can give one, in a hemergency.  Yes, I gives and takes.”

“That’s where we differ,” returned Durgin.  “I do a more genteel business; I give, and don’t take.”

“Unless you’re uncommon careful,” said Denyven, pulling away at his pipe, “you’ll find yourself some day henlarging your business.”

Durgin pushed back his stool.

“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” interposed Mr. Snelling, appearing from beind the bar with a lemon-squeezer in his hand, “we’ll have no black eyes here that wasn’t born so.  I am partial to them myself when nature gives them; and I propose the health of Miss Molly Hennessey,” with a sly glance at Durgin, who colored, “to be drank at the expense of the house.  Name your taps, gentlemen.”

“Snelling, me boy, ye’d wint the bird from the bush with yer beguilin’ ways.  Ye’ve brought proud tears to the eyes of an aged parent, and I’ll take a sup out of that high-showldered bottle which you kape under the counter for the gentle-folk in the other room.”

A general laugh greeted Mr. Hennessey’s selection, and peace was restored; but the majority of those present were workmen from Slocum’s, and the event of the afternoon remained the uppermost theme.

“Shackford is a different build from Slocum,” said Piggott.

“I guess the yard will find that out when he gets to be proprietor,” rejoined Durgin, clicking his spoon against the empty glass to attract Snelling’s attention.

“Going to be proprietor, is he?”

“Some day or other,” answered Durgin.  “First he’ll step into the business, and then into the family.  He’s had his eye on Slocum’s girl these four or five years.  Got a cast of her fist up in his workshop.  Leave Dick Shackford alone for lining his nest and making it soft all round.”