“If she doesn’t I will!” answered Gerald, stoutly. “A very little of the ‘Cunnel’ goes a long way with yours truly.”
Jim looked up sharply. His own face showed annoyance at the reappearance of the farmer but he hadn’t forgotten some things the others had.
“Look here, fellows! This isn’t our picnic, you know!”
Melvin flushed and ducked his head, as if from a blow, but Gerald retorted:
“I don’t care if it isn’t. I’d rather quit than have that old snoozer for my daily!”
“I don’t suppose anybody will object to your quitting when you want to. The Water Lily ain’t yours, though you ’pear to think so. And let me tell you right now; if you don’t do the civil to anybody my mistress has around I’ll teach you better manners—that’s all!”
With that Jim returned to the polishing of his useless engine, making no further response to Gerald’s taunts.
“Mistress! Mistress? Well, I’ll have you to know, you young hireling, that I’m my own master. I don’t work for any mistress, without wages or with ’em, and in my set we don’t hobnob with workmen—ever. Hear that? And mind you keep your own place, after this!”
An ugly look came over Jim’s face and his hands clenched. With utmost difficulty he kept from rising to knock the insolent Gerald down, and a few words more might have brought on a regular battle of fists, had not Melvin interposed in his mild voice yet with indignation in his eyes:
“You don’t mean that, Gerald. ‘A man’s a man for a’ that.’ I’m a ‘hireling,’ too, d’ye mind? A gentleman, that you boast you are, doesn’t bully his inferiors nor behave like a ruffian in a lady’s house—or boat—which is the same thing. Gentlemen don’t do that—Not in our Province.”