"You say I kept somebody out of a job?" he asked.
"Yes, you did!"
The cashier's tone was so accusing that Hendrik said:
"Don't call a policeman, Mr. Coster."
"And don't you get fresh, Rutgers. Now see here; you go back and let the rise come in the usual course. I'll give you a friendly tip: once you are in class C you will be more directly under my own eye!"
Instead of feeling grateful for the implied promise, Hendrik could think only that they classified men like cattle. All steers weighing one thousand pounds went into pen B, and so on. This saved time to the butchers, who, not having to stop in order to weigh and classify, were enabled to slit many more throats per day.
He did not know it, but he thought all this because he wished to go fishing. Therefore he said: "I've got to have more money!" His fists clenched and his face flushed. He thought of cattle, of the ox-making bank, of being driven from pen A into pen B, and, in the end, fertilizer. "I've got to!" he repeated, thickly.
"You won't get it, take it from me. To ask for it now simply means being instantly fired."
"Being fired" sounded so much like being freed that Hendrik retorted, pleasantly:
"Mr. Coster, you may yet live to take your orders from me, if I am fired. But if I stay here, you never will; that's sure."