“I pay you to do certain work. If you don’t care to carry out instructions, we can dispense with your services. What’s the matter with you, Taggart?”
Taggart replied with a wry smile:
“Suffering from a fit of conscience, sir. Isn’t it a matter of commercial honesty?”
The chief sat back in his swivel chair and gazed at him for quite twenty seconds.
“Well,” he said at last in an icy voice, “I have never been so insulted. Good-morning! You are at liberty.”
Taggart laid down the sheets of paper, walked stiffly to the door, and turned.
“Awfully sorry, sir, can’t help it.”
The chief bowed distantly, and Taggart went out.
For three months he had enjoyed liberty. Journalism was overstocked; his name not well known. Too shy and proud to ask for recommendation from ‘Conglomerated Journals,’ he could never bring himself to explain why he had ‘got the hoof.’ Claim a higher standard of morality than his fellows—not he! For two months he had carried on pretty well, but the last few weeks had brought him low indeed. Yet the more he brooded, the more he felt that he had been right, and the less inclined he was to speak of it. Loyalty to the chief he had insulted by taking such an attitude, dislike of being thought a fool, beyond all, dread of ‘swanking’ kept him silent. When asked why he had left ‘Conglomerated Journals’ he returned the answer always: “Disagreement on a point of principle,” and refused to enter into details. But a feeling had got about that he was a bit of a crank; for, though no one at ‘Conglomerated Journals’ knew exactly why he had vanished, Counter had spread the news that he had blasted Georgie Grebe, and refused to write his article. Someone else had done it. Taggart read the production with irritation. It was jolly bad. Inefficient devilling still hurt one who had devilled long and efficiently without a qualm. When the article which had not been written by Sir Cutman Kane appeared—he swore aloud. It was no more like the one Sir Cutman would have signed if Taggart had written it than the boots of Taggart were like the boots of the chief, who seemed to wear a fresh pair every day, with cloth tops. He read the chief’s new leaders with melancholy, spotting the many deficiencies of style supplied to the chief by the poor devil who now wrote them. His square, red, cheerful face had a bitter look while he was reading; and when he had finished, he would rumple his stiff hair. He was sturdy, and never got so far as calling himself a fool for his pains; but, week by week, he felt more certain that his protest had been in vain.