“I see,” said Dick, with a smile at the fellow’s candor. “Well, I couldn’t trust you with the cement again, but we’re short of a man to superintend a peon gang and I’ll talk to Mr. Stuyvesant about it if you’ll tell me your address.”
Payne gave him a fixed, eager look. “You get me the job and take me out of this and you won’t be sorry. I’ll make it good to you—and I reckon I can.”
Dick, who thought the other’s anxiety to escape from his degrading occupation had prompted his last statement, turned away, saying he would see what could be done, and in the evening visited Stuyvesant. Bethune was already with him, and Dick told them how he had found Payne.
“You felt you had to promise the fellow a job because he butted in when the dagos got after you?” Stuyvesant suggested.
“No,” said Dick with some embarrassment, “it wasn’t altogether that. He certainly did help me, but I can’t pass my obligations on to my employer. If you think he can’t be trusted, I’ll pay his passage to another port.”
“Well, I don’t know that if I had the option I’d take the fellow out of jail, so long as he was shut up decently out of sight; but this is worse, in a way. What do you think, Bethune?”
Bethune smiled. “You ought to know. I’m a bit of a philosopher, but when you stir my racial feelings I’m an American first. The mean white’s a troublesome proposition at home, but we can’t afford to exhibit him to the dagos here.” He turned to Dick. “That’s our attitude, Brandon, and though you were not long in our country, you seem to sympathize with it. I don’t claim it’s quite logical, but there it is! We’re white and different.”
“Do you want me to hire the man?” Stuyvesant asked with an impatient gesture.
“Yes,” said Dick.
“Then put him on. If he steals anything, I’ll hold you responsible and ship him out on the next cement boat, whether he wants to go or not.”