Sturgess went out without a word, but with an ugly look upon his countenance.
“All right!” he muttered. “Make much of it. People who get up very high have the farther to fall. Curse him! I’ll let him see.”
“He must have been drinking,” thought Clive, as soon as he was alone.
The next minute he was wrapt in the management of the mine, and giving orders to different men, ending by going to the bucket to be let down, and noting that Sturgess was looking at him searchingly as he rose from bending over the labourers who were lifting the rails.
Chapter Seventeen.
Major Gurdon’s Venture.
“My dear boy, you are quite a glutton at work,” said the Major one day when a miner had shown him into Clive’s office.
“Ah! Major,” cried the engineer, looking up from a plan he was making, “glad to see you;” and he shook hands. “Hope Miss Gurdon is better.”