The man had started. “No,—You won’t do that—No!” He was almost cowering before him.
John smiled a little, looking down at him. So it was still a name to conjure with! His mind wandered inconsequently to the bag of eggs on the high shelf and the egg-beater hanging on its nail behind the cupboard door. The man little knew that they were President Tetlow. He was still a terror to evil doers. “One breath—and I tell him!” said John sternly.
The man shrank a little. “I ’ll do it,” he said. He, himself, could not have accounted for the fear that held him. He knew that the president of the “R. and Q.” road was a broken man; he had sworn it to the manager of the C. B. and L.; but none the less he was afraid. A phrase that he had heard long since, stirred in his mind—“You don’t cross Sim Tetlow and live!” He wanted to live—the assistant bookkeeper—he desired earnestly to live—and to prosper. He had done his best for years—Yet it seemed always to evade him.
“I ’ll do it all right for you—I ’ll act on the square,” he said magnanimously.
“Oh, no—You ’ll do what you have to,” said John.
A sudden hatred of this young man flared in the assistant bookkeeper’s heart. Then he remembered the look in Nixon’s face—manager of the C. B. and L.—the day he had seen him last. It struck him that the two looks were curiously alike. “I hate Nixon!” he said viciously, “I ’ll be glad to get one on him.”
“Does n’t he pay you well?” asked John.
The man writhed a little. “That’s my affair,” he said.
“All right. Keep it your affair,” said John. “He ’ll pay you—same as ever—and you ’re to take it.”
The man stared at him. His jaw had dropped a little. He moved toward the door. “You ’re a deep un. I don’t want anything to do with you.... I can’t face Nixon—every month, I tell you. He’d kill me!”