Starratt's glance traveled toward the golf sticks. "Well, it seems to me it's a case of one man cutting down on necessities to provide another with luxuries." He hated himself once he had said it. It outraged his own sense of breeding.
Mr. Ford shoved the pencil and pad to one side. "A parlor radical, eh?… Well, this from you is surprising!… If there was one man in my employ whom I counted on, it was you. You've been with me over fifteen years … began as office boy, as I remember. And in all that time you've never even asked for a privilege… I'm sorry to see such a fine record broken!"
Yesterday Starratt would have agreed with him, but now he felt moved to indignation and shame at Ford's summary of his negative virtues. He had been born with a voice and he had never lifted it to ask for his rights, much less a favor. No wonder Hilmer could sneer and Helen Starratt cut him with the fine knife of her scorn! The words began to tumble to his lips. They came in swirling flood. He lost count of what he was saying, but the angry white face of his employer foreshadowed the inevitable end of this interview. He gave his rancor its full scope … protests, defiance, insults, even, heaping up in a formidable pile.
"You ask me to be patient," he flared, "because you think I'm a reasonable, rational, considerate beast that can be broken to any harness!" He recognized Hilmer's words, but he swept on. "If you were in a real flesh-and-blood business you'd have felt the force of things … you'd have had men with guts to deal with … you'd have had a brick or two heaved into your plate-glass window. A friend of mine said last night that potting clerks was as sickening as a rabbit drive. He was right, it is sickening!"
Mr. Ford raised his hand. Starratt obeyed with silence.
"I'm sorry, Starratt, to see you bitten with this radical disease… Of course, you can't stay on here, after this. Your confidence in us seems to have been destroyed and it goes without saying that my confidence in you has been seriously undermined. We'll give you a good recommendation and a month's salary… But you had better leave at once. A man in your frame of mind isn't a good investment for Ford, Wetherbee & Co."
Starratt was still quivering with unleashed heroics. "The recommendation is coming to me," he returned, coldly. "The month's salary isn't. I'll take what I've earned and not a penny more."
"Very well; suit yourself there."
Mr. Ford reached for his pen and began where he had left off at Starratt's entrance … signing insurance policies… Starratt rose and left without a word. The interview was over.
Already, in that mysterious way with which secrets flash through an office with lightninglike rapidity, a hint of Starratt's brush with Ford was illuminating the dull routine.