“Like it?” Sheener echoed. “He don’t have to like it. If he tries to pull anything on me, I’ll poke the old coot in the eye.”
I doubt whether this was actually his method of dominating Evans. It is more likely that he used a diplomacy which occasionally appeared in his dealings with the world. Certainly the arrangement presently collapsed, for Sheener confessed to me that he had given his savings back to Evans. We were minus a second assistant janitor for a week as a consequence, and when Evans tottered back to the office and would have gone to work I told him he was through.
He took it meekly enough, but not Sheener. Sheener came to me with fire in his eye.
“Sa-a-ay,” he demanded, “what’s coming off here, anyhow? What do you think you’re trying to pull?”
I asked him what he was talking about, and he said: “Evans says you’ve given him the hook.”
“That’s right,” I admitted. “He’s through.”
“He is not,” Sheener told me flatly. “You can’t fire that guy.”
“Why not?”
“He’s got to live, ain’t he?”
I answered, somewhat glibly, that I did not see the necessity, but the look that sprang at once into Sheener’s eye made me faintly ashamed of myself, and I went on to urge that Evans was failing to do his work and could deserve no consideration.