"I'm trying to make up my mind whether I should give you your discharge
or a good hiding. I don't like sacking a man in a strange land, and
you're not in a condition for a fair fight. What do you think I ought to
do?"
Jackman staggered to his feet and glared at him.
"You've hit me once before, Mr. Green," he said. "Hit me again--just lay
your hand on me, and it'll be the last man you ever bash. You're an
upstart, that's what you are. You think, because you can come over that
old fool, that you're going to lord it over everybody. You can play that
sort of game with the women, but you can't with me. I'm engaged for this
trip, and you can't sack me because I made a slip of it in the ring just
now. I know the law, Mr. Green. You think I'm drunk. I'm sober enough to
best you, anyhow."
Thinking to take Derrick unawares, the foolish man aimed a blow at him;
but Derrick caught the arm, and almost gently forced Jackman into his
seat again.
"If you hadn't gone for me I'd have sacked you; but I see there's some
good left in you, anyhow. Pull yourself together, man, and don't be an
idiot. Cut this stuff"--he tapped the bottle--"and do your job properly.
I'll talk to you in the morning. No, I won't; but if I find you playing
the giddy goat again, I'll give you your choice of a hiding or a
discharge."
As Derrick hurried off to the manager's office he asked himself why he
had been so merciful, for the man had deserved all with which Derrick
had threatened him. But Derrick knew, for as he had stood looking down
at the man, he had remembered a certain young man who had been saved
from playing the fool by a girl; and the remembrance would never leave
him, would always make him merciful towards the folly of other men.
Mr. Bloxford was not wearing his fur coat, but he nodded to the garment,
where it hung on a chair behind him.
"Help me on with it, will you? Took it off--thought there was going to
be a row," he said, with the air of a man who is quite able alone to
quell a disturbance. "You managed that very well, Mr. Green." This was
the first time he had honoured Derrick with a prefix. "The neatest thing
I've seen. Yes, you're a cool hand, young man. At first I thought you
were going to come the high and mighty over that cowboy, and if you had,
you'd have raised Hades and Thomasus. We should have had the rest of
them on us and the show wrecked, like they did that other one. I tell
you I was out of that coat before you could say Jack Robinson. But
before you were half across the ring I twigged your game. And you played
it for all it was worth. You're made of the right stuff. Yes, you're the
sort of man I've read about in the silly story books; but I little
thought I should ever come across him. Now, I wonder why it is?"