“I think he had better take one of the heel-shaving machines below,” said Flynn, “and let that big Swede, that's as strong as an ox, and never jumped at anything in his life, take his place here.”
“All right,” said Lloyd, assuming a nonchalant air. “Make the change if you think it advisable, Flynn.”
While such benevolence towards a possible rival had its suspicious points, yet there was, after all, some reason for it. Granville Joy, who was delicately organized as to his nerves, was running a machine for cutting linings, and this came down with sharp thuds which shook the factory, and it was fairly torture to him. Every time the knife fell he cringed as if at a cannon report. He had never grown accustomed to it. His face had acquired a fixed expression of being screwed to meet a shock of sound. He was manifestly unfit for his job, but he received the order to leave with dismay.
“Hasn't my work been satisfactory?” he asked Flynn.
“Satisfactory enough,” replied the foreman, genially, “but it's too hard for you, man.”
“I 'ain't complained,” said Joy, with a flash of his eyes. He thought he knew why this solicitude was shown him.
“I know you 'ain't,” said Flynn, “but you 'ain't got the muscle and nerve for it. That's plain enough to see.”
“I 'ain't complained, and I'd rather stay where I be,” said Joy, angrily.
“You'll go where you are sent in this factory, or be damned,” cried Flynn, walking off.
Joy looked after him with an expression which transformed his face. But the next morning the stolid Swede, who would not have started at a bomb, was at his place, and he was below, where he could not see Ellen.