“You don’t have to give notice. You’re discharged. Good-bye.” He started for the sitting-room.
She slapped the dining-table with one of her big hands. The dishes bounced into the air, and so did he. 28
“I’ll give this much notice to yez,” she roared, “and ye’ll bear it in mind as long as yez stay in the same house wid me. I don’t take no orders from the likes of you. I was employed by Miss Duluth. I cook for her, I get me pay from her, and I’ll not be fired by anybody but her. Do yez get that? I’d as soon take orders from the kid as from you, ye little pinhead. Who are yez anyhow? Ye’re nobody. Begorry, I don’t even know yer name. Discharge me! Phy, phy, ye couldn’t discharge a firecracker. What’s that?”
“I—I didn’t say anything,” he gasped.
“Ye’d better not.”
“I shall speak to—to Miss Duluth about this,” he muttered, very red in the face.
“Do!” she advised, sarcastically. “She’ll tell yez to mind yer own business, the same as I do. The idee! Talkin’ about firing me! Fer the love av Mike, Annie, what do yez think av the nerve? Phy Miss Duluth kapes him on the place I can’t fer the life av me see. She’s that tinder-hearted she––”
But he had bolted through the door, slamming it after him. As he reached the bottom of the stairs leading to his bedroom the 29 door opened again and Annie called out to him:—
“Are you through lunch, sir?”
He was halfway up the steps before he could frame an answer. Tears of rage and humiliation were in his baby-blue eyes.