"As you please," gasped the old man. "There are others as clever as you, and infinitely less expensive. You ungrateful young scapegrace!" he added, turning on Desmond, "I have been a friend to you and to your family. But for me you would have starved."
With this he stalked out of the office, leaving the other men smiling broadly in each other's faces at this outburst of impotent rage.
"I am a stubborn sort of person," said Cairns, "and I rather like this locality. Shall we stay in Grey Town and fight him?"
Desmond eyed his superior with an unaffected surprise.
"Fight him? But how?" he asked.
"Come round to me to-night—no, to-morrow night, young man. I must see one or two men of business in the town. After my interviews we will discuss the best means of fighting Ebenezer."
"Shall we take the old man at his word, and leave him in the lurch? Do you think he could run 'The Observer' for himself?" asked Desmond.
"No, Desmond; here I stay until he finds a successor. I love the old 'Observer,' and I am responsible for it while I remain on the staff. After I go, I may take my revenge out of the ancient sinner."
That day the work proceeded as usual. During the course of it a man came into the office and asked for Desmond O'Connor. He was a big man, with a good-humoured, ugly face, surmounted by curly black hair. He was tanned by the sun, and his blue-grey Irish eyes peeped out from the reddish-brown surroundings of his face. He had a determined mouth and chin, a jaw that spoke of a struggle with the world, and of success in that battle.
"You are O'Connor?" he asked Desmond when he appeared. "I am Quirk, the long lost and recently returned. Did Miss O'Connor speak of me?"