She held out her hands to him and he went to her and knelt at her side. And she mothered him, that dinky, absurd little man, and he bowed his head on her knee.
CHAPTER IX
A NEW HOUSE
Radbourne & Company was in a daze. And no wonder! For a week the "little boss" had not once beamed, the spirited hop had gone out of his walk, a new querulous note had come into his voice. When a matter went wrong—which, it seemed, happened oftener than usual—he reminded the delinquent of the fact, not gently, but sadly, as though deeply aweary of the frailty of men. Miss Brown confided to Esther that she was well on the way to "nervous prostration." Esther was worried, and wondered what grave mischance could have worked out such a change in Jonathan. He seemed to avoid both her and David, and when they did meet his manner was constrained and awkward.
It was like chicken-pox and evil gossip and other contagious diseases. It spread. Gloom hung like a fog over office and shop. No one whistled or hummed at work. Good friends lost their heads and exchanged cutting words. And Hegner, the shop foreman, who had been sober for a year, lost his grip and got drunk. Because he was ashamed and hated himself, his temper was always at half-cock.
And Smith—poor Smith, the ex-convict, to whom Jonathan's kindness had been as water on a lame duck's back—had to bear the brunt of Hegner's distemper. He stood it as long as he could; which was not very long.
One noon hour he presented himself, sullen and whining and bleeding at the nose, with a grievance for Jonathan's ears. The latter looked up frowningly from the pile of letters he was signing; they were sadly misspelled, the agitated Miss Brown having been at her worst.
"Yes, Smith," he said wearily. "What is it? A complaint, I suppose?"
"I wants to know," began Smith in a whine, "why I can't git a square deal here. The shop boss he—"
"Is Hegner mixed up in it? Then go bring him here and say what you have to say before him."