"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?"
He cocked his bald head and peered at Derrick thoughtfully.
"Of course, they'd say in the books it's because you're a 'gentleman.' Well, up to now, I've always given the grin to that highfulutin notion; but—I dunno. Anyhow, I'm much obliged to you."
He held out a grubby paw and shook the now very much embarrassed Derrick by the hand.
"Of course, I'm going to raise your screw. We'll say, double it, and no palaver."
Derrick expressed his thanks, but Mr. Bloxford waved him away.
"As for that pig Jackman, we'll fire him out, of course."