“Was that what the men down there had against me?” he inquired almost humbly, walking on once more.
“Sure!” Burnham assented. “The boys are all right, but they’re touchy. And you blow in, not meaning any harm—but they didn’t know that, not knowing you like I know you—and you ask them what the matter is, like a man giving orders, and they get sore.”
Sullen anger with himself crept over Stacey. It was all true enough. He had spoken to the men crisply, like one in authority. There was no use in explaining to them, or even to Burnham, that this was not because he was a Vernon Carroll but because he could not rid himself of the military habit of command in word and thought. There was no use in explaining anything to anybody. Bonds? He was tied hand and foot with them!
“By the way,” he asked quietly, “what is it they want, Burnham?”
“They’re getting seventy cents an hour—my crowd, I mean. They want eighty.”
“I see.”
They continued, in silence, until at last they reached the Carroll house. Burnham paused to look up at it.
“Some place, Captain!” he observed appreciatively.
“You know it?”
“Yes, I—I’ve been by here before,” said Burnham sheepishly.