And now, perhaps, it’s the best time to explain the reason for the grouch, and let out how I happened to be there at all.
Briefly stated, I had been discharged the day before. Fired, canned—call it what you will; and for what I now recognize to have been an entirely good and sufficient reason.
But in the hot-headed asininity which I had not the sense to master in those days, I had flared up to the quiet, but firm, remonstrance of my chief. It had been a case in which I had exceeded my orders, and I thought he ought rather to have applauded my zeal.
So that; in that blurting, blubbering fashion of the man who can’t keep his temper, I had let out a string of heated nonsense.
Whereupon Chief Garth’s tone had raised not a whit.
“Well, Grey,” said he slowly—too slowly, “I’m sorry, though I was afraid it would have to come. I had hoped it wouldn’t; but I simply cannot brook such repeated displays of inability to control your temper. I might waive the personal note; but I must not lose sight of the fact that such a trait, unmastered, makes you less a man to be relied upon.”
I started to interrupt him, but a gesture checked me.
“You remember,” said he, holding his same evenness, “that I told you the very first day you entered the detective service that orders were orders, and that I was distinctly a martinet. Now, I like you, and I’m not chary of admitting that you’re a very valuable man to me in many ways. But——”
And here I had been fool enough to whirl into my usual, youthful burst of independence. As I look back upon the scene, the chief was too moderate; though I did flounce from his office finally, with my pay to date and walking papers.
But now—what a change one look into certain eyes can make—I sat there on that hotel porch and realized what an ass I was. And, by the way, such a realization proved most salutary.