“It is exactly as you dictated to me yesterday, Sir,” said the editor indignantly.
“What, do you mean to contradict me?” roared Meeson. “Look here No. 7, you and I had better part. Now, no words: your salary will be paid to you till the end of the month, and if you would like to bring an action for wrongful dismissal, why, I’m your man. Good morning, No. 7; good morning.”
Next he crossed a courtyard where, by slipping stealthily around the corner, he came upon a jolly little errand boy, who was enjoying a solitary game of marbles.
Whack came his cane across the seat of that errand boy’s trousers, and in another minute he had followed the editor and the sandwich-devouring clerk.
And so the merry game went on for half an hour or more, till at last Mr. Meeson was fain to cease his troubling, being too exhausted to continue his destroying course. But next morning there was promotion going on in the great publishing house; eleven vacancies had to be filled.
A couple of glasses of brown sherry and a few sandwiches, which he hastily swallowed at a neighboring restaurant, quickly restored him, however; and, jumping into a cab, he drove post haste to his lawyers’, Messrs. Todd and James.
“Is Mr. Todd in?” he said to the managing clerk, who came forward bowing obsequiously to the richest man in Birmingham.
“Mr. Todd will be disengaged in a few minutes, Sir,” he said. “May I offer you the Times?”
“Damn the Times!” was the polite answer; “I don’t come here to read newspapers. Tell Mr. Todd I must see him at once, or else I shall go elsewhere.”
“I am much afraid Sir”—began the managing clerk.