"Don't be insolent to me, sir," retorted Mr. Forde. "You know it has come through no such thing; it has come through gross bad management and cowardice, of which a child might be ashamed, and utter laziness and want of energy."
"Well, we need not quarrel about the cause, Mr. Forde," said Rupert, "and as hard words break no bones—particularly when they chance to be untrue,—we will not quarrel over the last part of your sentence either; the end has come, and in my opinion the only matter to be regretted is that it did not come sooner."
"Your opinion," repeated Mr. Forde with a sneer.
"It may not be worth much I admit," said Rupert in agreement, "but such as it is you are welcome to it; and now, Mr. Forde, as there cannot be the slightest use in our prolonging a disagreeable interview I will wish you good afternoon."
"Don't go yet," exclaimed the manager peremptorily. "Confound that fellow, where has he got to?" having added which rider to his sentence, he took his hat once more and hurried out of the office.
"I wonder if he intends to give me in charge," thought the young man, who was much perplexed by Mr. Forde's mysterious change of manner. "Never mind, I hope I shall never set foot in this office again." A hope which was realized, but not in the way he desired.
Up and down the office he commenced pacing again. No one before had ever been made so free, or made himself so free of it as to take such a liberty; but the brand-new carpet and the furniture smelling strongly of varnish, and the manager's airs of alternate affability and terrorism, were nothing to Rupert now. He had sworn to himself from the time he broke ground with Mortomley, that Mr. Forde should be an incubus on his life no longer.
"I would rather have a settled term of penal servitude than an uncertain period of slavery under Forde," he had remarked more than once to Mr. Gibbons; and then Mr. Gibbons, who managed his own affairs extremely well, and who was not over-particular, so people said, about always rendering to other men exactly what was their due pecuniarily, asked what could have induced him and Mortomley to become Forde's bond-servants.
Whereupon Rupert, who could rap out an oath in a style which must have caused Mr. Asherill to shed tears had he heard his utterances, replied, "He believed Forde had got to the soft side of his uncle with some 'damned infernal rubbish' about his wife and children, and being ruined himself."
At which Mr. Gibbons laughed again, and happening to own a few shares in the General Chemical Company, directed his broker to sell them.