Sterry, pacing about like a caged woodchuck, launched into a tirade about silly Sunday-school notions, and, by a transition which I did not grasp, passed to a review of the general subject of woman's suffrage. I gathered that he is not in favor of the movement. I let him argue himself quiet, then I handed him a check for his wages, and told him to vacate the tenant house by twelve o'clock next Wednesday.
Sterry says he'll be danged if he will. (Excuse so many DANGEDS. It is the creature's only adjective.) He was engaged to work for this institution by the president of the board of trustees, and he will not move from that house until the president of the board of trustees tells him to go. I don't think poor Sterry realizes that since his arrival a new president has come to the throne.
ALORS you have the story. I make no threats, but Sterry or McBride—take your choice, dear sir.
I am also about to write to the head of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, at Amherst, asking him to recommend a good, practical man with a nice, efficient, cheerful wife, who will take the entire care of our modest domain of seventeen acres, and who will be a man with the right personality to place over our boys.
If we get the farming end of this institution into running shape, it ought to furnish not only beans and onions for the table, but education for our hands and brains.
I remain, sir, Yours most truly, S. McBRIDE, Superintendent of the John Grier Home.
P.S. I think that Sterry will probably come back some night and throw rocks through the windows. Shall I have them insured?
My dear Enemy:
You disappeared so quickly this afternoon that I had no chance to thank you, but the echoes of that discharge penetrated as far as my library. Also, I have viewed the debris. What on earth did you do to poor Sterry? Watching the purposeful set of your shoulders as you strode toward the carriage house, I was filled with sudden compunction. I did not want the man murdered, merely reasoned with. I am afraid you were a little harsh.
However, your technic seems to have been effective. Report says that he has telephoned for a moving wagon and that Mrs. Sterry is even now on her hands and knees ripping up the parlor carpet.