【英文原著类】Tom Grogan(汤姆·格洛刚).pdf

Tom Grogan
Tom Grogan
by F. Hopkinson Smith
1
Tom Grogan
I
BABCOCK'S DISCOVERY
Something worried Babcock. One could see that from the impatient
gesture with which he turned away from the ferry window on learning he
had half an hour to wait. He paced the slip with hands deep in his
pockets, his head on his chest. Every now and then he stopped, snapped
open his watch and shut it again quickly, as if to hurry the lagging
minutes.
For the first time in years Tom Grogan, who had always unloaded his
boats, had failed him. A scow loaded with stone for the sea-wall that
Babcock was building for the Lighthouse Department had lain three days
at the government dock without a bucket having been swung across her
decks. His foreman had just reported that there was not enough material
to last the concrete-mixers two hours. If Grogan did not begin work at
once, the divers e up.
Heretofore to turn over to Grogan the unloading of material for any
submarine work had been like feeding grist to a mill--so many tons of
concrete stone loaded on the scows by the stone pany had
meant that exact amount delivered by Grogan on Babcock's mixing-
platforms twenty-four hours after arrival, ready for the divers below.
This was the way Grogan had worked, and he had required no watching.
Babcock's impatience did not cease even when he took his seat on the
upper deck of the ferry-boat and caught the e sound of the paddles
sweeping back to the landing at St. e. He thought of his men
standing idle, and of the heavy penalties which would be inflicted by the
Government if the winter caught him before the section of wall was
complete. It was no way to serve a man, he kept repeating to himself,
leaving his gangs idle, now when the good weather might soon be over
and a full day's work could never be counted upon. Earlier in the season
Grogan's delay would not have been so serious.
But one northeaster as yet had struck the work. This had carried
away some of the u