amazement at his companion. “Man, you won’t live long in these parts if you speak in the open street like that. Many a man has had the life beaten out of him for less.”
“Well, I know nothing about them. It’s only what I have read.”
“And I’m not saying that you have not read the truth.” The man looked nervously round him as he spoke, peering into the shadows as if he feared to see some lurking danger. “If killing is murder, then God knows there is murder and to spare. But don’t you dare to breathe the name of Jack McGinty in connection with it, stranger; for every whisper goes back to him, and he is not one that is likely to let it pass. Now, that’s the house you’re after, that one standing back from the street. You’ll find old Jacob Shafter that runs it as honest a man as lives in this township.”