"So you are still lying on that sofa, just as you were three hours ago!"
Arthur was not accustomed, it seemed, to show his father even the outward forms of respect. He had taken no notice of his entrance, and it did not now occur to him to modify the extreme negligence of his attitude.
The lines on his father's brow grew deeper still.
"Your apathy and indolence really begin to pass belief. It is even worse here than in town. I hoped you would conform to my wishes, and take some interest in the success of a concern which was started solely on your account, but"----
"Good Heavens, sir!" said the young man, "you do not want me to trouble myself about workmen and machinery and such things, do you? I never have done so, and I can't, for my life, comprehend why you should have sent us here of all places. I am nearly bored to death in this wilderness."
He spoke languidly, but quite in the tone of a spoilt darling, accustomed everywhere, and under all circumstances, to see his caprices taken into account, and to whom even the suggestion of anything unpleasant was an offence. Something must have happened, however, to irritate his father too much for him to yield this time, as was his custom. He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"I am pretty well used to your being bored to death in every place and in all company, whilst I have to bear all the care and burden alone. Just now, worries are coming in upon me on all sides. It cost sacrifices enough to free the Windegs from their obligations, and here I find nothing but vexation and disagreeables without end. I have had a meeting this morning of all the superior officials with the Director at their head, and I was forced to listen to complaints, and nothing but complaints. Extensive repairs in the shafts--increase of wages--new ventilators. Nonsense! as if I had time and money for that now!"
Arthur listened without any show of sympathy; if his face expressed anything, it was the desire he felt that his father would go away. But the latter was not so obliging; he began to pace up and down the room.
"This comes of trusting to one's agents and their reports! For the last six months I have not been here in person, and everything is going to the deuce. They talk of a ferment of discontent among the hands, of grave symptoms and danger threatening, as if they had not full authority to draw the reins as tight as they choose. A certain Hartmann is pointed out to me as chief agitator. He is looked upon by the other miners as a sort of Messiah, and he is secretly stirring up the whole works to revolt. When I ask why, in Heaven's name, they have not sent the fellow about his business long ago, what answer do I get? They dare not! So far, he has given no grounds for dissatisfaction on the score of his work, and his comrades fairly worship him. There would be a strike on the works if he were sent away without sufficient motive. I took the liberty of telling these gentlemen that they were a set of timid hares, and that I would take the thing into hand myself. The shafts will remain as they are, and as to the question of wages, not an iota of difference shall be made in them. The least attempt at a rising will be met with the utmost severity, and I shall dismiss the plotter-in-chief myself this very day."
"You can't do that, sir!" said Arthur suddenly, half raising himself on the sofa.