“Well, never mind about that now, Anderson,” intercepted Mr. Lockyer crisply. “I daresay it was as you say. Fortunately, no damage was done. But that is not thanks to you. I am disappointed in you, Anderson. I made you foreman here, hoping that you would prove as capable as my estimation of you. Instead I find that you gave a newcomer the key to the torpedo room when you know it was against my strict orders for any one to enter it till the break in the pipe had been adjusted.”
“I gave that man the key so as he could take a look at the pipe,” explained Anderson. “He said he thought he knew how repairs could be made on it.”
“It makes no difference, it was against my orders,” snapped Mr. Lockyer. “You could have asked me first had you wished to do such a thing. Then, too, the door of the gun-cotton shed was left open. How did that happen?”
“I dunno,” grumbled Anderson. “I suppose you’ll blame that on me, too.”
“If you are yard foreman, you certainly were responsible for it,” was the rejoinder.
Some of the other panic-stricken workmen had returned now and stood clustered on the steel ladder and about the foot of it, listening curiously. Apparently their presence made Anderson anxious to assert his independence for he burst out in an insolent voice:
“I guess I know more about my business than any crack-brained inventor. I’m not going to be talked to that way, either, Mr. Lockyer. Understand?”
“I understand that you can walk to the office and get your pay, Anderson,” was the prompt retort. “The sooner you do so, the better it will suit me. You have been getting more and more impudent and shiftless every day. This insolence is the last straw. You are discharged.”
Anderson grew pale for a minute under the black grime on his face. But he quickly recovered himself, and his eyes blazed with fury. He took a step forward and shook his fist under Lockyer’s nose.
“Fire me if you want to,” he grated out; “but it will be the sorriest day’s work you ever did. I know a whole lot about your old submarine tea-kettle that you wouldn’t want told outside. I’ve held my tongue hitherto, but I shan’t now. You’ll see.”