“What?”
“I say no insolence, sir. I am aware of the fact that you are an excellent workman and valuable to me here, but you are presuming on those facts, and I warn you that if ever you dare to answer me in that way again, we part on the instant.”
“What way?”
“As you addressed me a short time back. Michael Sturgess, I have long noticed your insolent, overbearing ways with the men. They are beginning to resent it. I have had several complaints from them, and all this must end, if you are to stay here.”
“If I’m to stay here, eh? I daresay if the company is tired of the way in which I have made this old mine pay, I can soon get another engagement.”
“My good man,” said Clive Reed coldly and dispassionately, “prosperity is making you lose your head, and it is an act of kindness to disillusionise you before you go too far and lose a valuable appointment.”
The man glared at him as they stood together in one of the dark passages of the mine, close to an old shaft which descended to a lower line of workings.
“Let me tell you, once for all, that, though you have worked well, you are in no wise answerable for the success of the mine, and that it would have been quite as prosperous if Michael Sturgess had not been here.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the man insolently; and Reed flushed angrily, but controlled his rising temper, and went on calmly enough.
“Secondly, let me disabuse your mind of the idea that it is open to you to appeal to the company against any decision of mine. Understand this, sir: my power here is supreme, and, though I should be reluctant to exercise that power against a good workman, the trouble of obtaining a successor in your post would not be great, and I should exercise that power sharply and firmly, if I had just cause.”