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"Begorrah!" cried Mick, who stood near me in the fore-chains, ready with a rope to chuck down into the little craft as we surged alongside it, as indeed were several others also, like prepared, forwards; "they've bin havin' a divvle ov a row, or foightin', or somethin', sure; fur Tom, look thare, me bhoy can't ye say some soords or a pair of cutlashes or somethin' like 'em oonder the afther-thwart theer?"
Th' boss hated um because he wuz a bether man because he know'd he wuz a clane man, wid a foightin' hear-rt an' two fists an' th' guts to carry um t'rough. He chilled th' har-rt av th' boss th' fur-rst noight he seen um, an' from thin on th' fear wuz upon um fer th' bird's-eye." "The bird's-eye?" inquired Appleton. "What do you mean?"
"But there's wan thing Jim's got that no other wan of my b'ys has," she continued. Jim pricked up his ears. "He's the born foighter, is Jim. If he was big now, and there was a war to come, he'd be a soldier, I'm thinkin'. He's for foightin' iverything, even the words of a body's mouth." This praise might be equivocal, but little Jim did not so understand it, and his pride returned.
But Oi'm thinkin' niver befoor was Oi closter to th' roight place at th' roight toime thin a minit agone. "Whisky is made to be dhrank fer a pastime av enj'ymint not alone wid a laugh loike that. Ye've got th' crayther on th' run, but ye must give no quarter. Battles is won not in th' thruse, but in th' foightin'.
You've begun in toime, so you have, and, if you kape on, you can get a lot of it done before you come to the place where you can do what you loike, such as kapin' a bank and that. But it's no business. The Gineral's business was foightin', you know. He kapes a bank jist to pass the toime." Little Jim's eyes widened. Here was a new outlook for him.
"What's larnin' your lessons got to do with bein' a foightin' man, sir?" he asked respectfully. "A great deal, my boy. If you ever get to West Point you will have to study here, and you will have to go to school there besides." Jim sighed. "You can't get to be nothin' you want to be without doin' a lot you don't want to do," he said despondently.
But, tell me ye didn't run away from ut ye're goin' back?" Bill made no reply, and the old man conveyed the food to the table, muttering to himself the while: "Sure they's more foightin' goin' on thin Oi iver thought to see ag'in.
In half an hour he'll be clost around Burrage's shtove, tellin' th' b'ys about th' bur-rnt shack at Melton's." Bill resumed his chair. "Oi've been thinkin' ut out," continued Daddy, between short puffs at his cutty-pipe. "Ye'll have no fun lickin' Creed 'tis shmall satisfaction foightin' a man that won't foight back. An-ny-how, a black eye or a bloody nose is soon minded.
"Ye might carry th' name av a Noo York money-grubber, but yer hear-rt is th' hear-rt av a foightin' McKim an' yer eyes, an' that smile th' McKim smile that's as much a laugh as th' growl av a grizzly an' more dangerous thin a cocked gun." The old man paused and filled his pipe, muttering and chuckling to himself. Bill grasped his hand, wringing it in a mighty grip.
"First Pat and then Moike and then you, Andy, with your book, and now little Jim with his foightin'. And that's what beats me, that I should be proud of my b'y's foightin'. And I am that." Friday evening seemed a long way off to little Jim when he lay down on his bed that night. He had never attended a party in his life.
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