Mr. Hardy replied, still speaking pleasantly: "The matter of more pay is one we cannot well discuss here now, but I will say to you and all the rest, that as far as it is in my power there shall be no more Sunday work demanded—while I live," Mr. Hardy was on the point of saying; but he said instead, "of the men in the shops."
"Still, that is not the question," replied the man in an insolent tone. Mr. Hardy looked at him more closely, and saw that he had been drinking. Several of the workmen cried out:
"Shut up, Herman! Mr. Hardy be right; we be fools to make row now at this time."
A dozen men started for their machines to go to work again, while Burns went up and laid his hand, on the Norwegian's arm, and said to him roughly:
"Quit off now. You've been dipping that beard of yours into a whiskey barrel. Better mind your pegs, or you get your walking papers."
"Mind your own, Burns," replied the big man heavily. "You be somethings of a beard drinker yourself, if you had the beard."
Burns was so enraged at the drunken retort that he drew back as if to strike the man, when the Norwegian smote the foreman a blow that laid him sprawling in the iron dust. Instantly Mr. Hardy stepped up between the two men before Burns could rise. We have spoken of Robert's intense horror of the coarse, physical vices. It seemed totally wrong to him that a workman should degrade himself with drink. Besides, he could not tolerate such actions in the shops. He looked the drunken man in the face and said sternly:
"You are discharged! I cannot afford to employ drunken men in these shops. You may go this instant!"
The man leered at Mr. Hardy, raised his arm as if to strike, while the manager confronted him with a stern look; but before the Norwegian could do any harm two or three of the men seized him and hustled him back to the other end of the shops, while Burns rose, vowing vengeance.
The men went back to their machines, and Mr. Hardy, with an anxious heart, went back into the office, satisfied that there would be no trouble at the shops for the rest of the day at least. He was sorry that he had been obliged to discharge Herman, but he felt that he had done the right thing. The company could not afford to employ in any way men who were drunkards, especially just at this time, when it began to be more than plainly hinted that the result of the accident on the road was due to the partial intoxication of a track inspector.