That a man on the very night of joining the lodge
should have done something which brought him before the
magistrate was a new record in the annals of the society.
Already he had earned the reputation of a good boon companion, a
cheery reveller, and withal a man of high temper, who would not
take an insult even from the all-powerful Boss himself. But in
addition to this he impressed his comrades with the idea that
among them all there was not one whose brain was so ready to
devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand would be more capable
of carrying it out. "He'll be the boy for the clean job," said
the oldsters to one another, and waited their time until they
could set him to his work.
McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that
this was a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a
fierce bloodhound in leash. There were curs to do the smaller
work; but some day he would slip this creature upon its prey. A
few members of the lodge, Ted Baldwin among them, resented the
rapid rise of the stranger and hated him for it; but they kept
clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as to laugh.
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