"Naturally you consider yourself above foreman's work," she commented, with faint sarcasm.
"I don't consider myself above any work when it's up to me to do it or see it left undone," he replied. "I've held a riveter and driven spikes and shimmed up ties before now. But a concern that pays a first-class man to do third-class work is robbing itself. This is the last time I'll do it. That's how I feel about it."
Sheila was not accustomed to hear a man blow his own horn so frankly. The best men of her acquaintance—her father, Casey Dunne, Tom McHale, and others—seldom talked of themselves, never bragged, never mentioned their proficiency in anything. She had been brought up to regard a boaster and a bluff as synonymous. To her an egotist was also a bluff. His bad taste repelled her. And yet he did not seem to stress the announcement.
"A first-class man should not waste his time," she observed, but to save her life she could not keep her tone free from sarcasm. He took up her meaning with extraordinary quickness.
"You think I might have let somebody else say that? Pshaw! I'm not mock-modest. I am a good man, and I'm paid accordingly. I want you to know it. I don't want you to take me for a poor devil of a line runner."
"What on earth does it matter what I take you for?" said Sheila. "I don't care whether you have a hundred or a thousand a month. What difference does it make to me?"
"None—but it makes a whole lot to me," said Farwell. "I'm interested in my profession. I want to get to the top of it. I'm halfway up, and time counts. And then to be sent down here on this rotten job! Pah! it makes me sick."
"I'm glad to hear you admit that it's rotten," said Sheila. "It's outrageous—a straight steal."
He stared at her a moment, laughed, and shook his head.
"You don't understand me. It's rotten from my standpoint—too trivial to waste time on."