“I said you were forty minutes late, sir. We expect our lecturers to be on—”
That was the fulminate that exploded the bomb. Up to now I had held myself in hand. I was carrying, I knew, 194 pounds of steam, and I also knew that one shovel more of coal would send the entire boiler into space, but through it all I had kept my hand on the safety-valve. It might have been the white waistcoat or the way the curved white collar cupped his billiard-ball of a chin, or it might have been the slight frown about his eyebrows, or the patronizing smile that drifted over his freshly laundered face; or it might have been the deprecating gesture with which he consulted his watch: whatever it was, out went the boiler.
“Late! Are you the man that's running this lecture course?”
“Well, sir, I have the management of it.”
“You have, have you? Then permit me to tell you right here, my friend, that you ought to sublet the contract to a five-year-old boy. You let me get out in the cold—send no conveyance as you agreed—”
“We sent our wagon, sir, to the station. You could have gone in and warmed yourself, and if it had not arrived you could have telephoned—the station is always warm.”
“You have the impudence to tell me that I don't know whether a station is closed or not, and that I can't see a wagon when it is hauled up alongside a depot?”
The clammy hands went up in protest: “If you will listen, sir, I will—”
“No, sir, I will listen to nothing.” and I forged ahead into a small room where five or six belated people were hanging up their coats and hats.
But the Immaculate still persisted: