"Are you working here?" asked the fat man.
"Yes," I answered.
"'Yes, sir,' you mean," said the fatter man.
"I mean 'yes,'" I said. The man looked overbearing, and he annoyed me.
"I'm the master of this place," said the fatter man. "You must address me as 'sir' when speaking to me."
A fat man looks awfully ridiculous with his big stomach, his short breath, and short legs. An ugly man may look dignified; a gargoyle may even possess the dignity of unrivalled ugliness, but a fat man with a red face who poses as a dignified being is very funny to see. I never raise my hat to any man, and I was not going to say "sir" to the blown bubble in front of me.
"You had better say 'sir,'" said the factor. "This gentleman is your master."
The word "master" is repellent to me.
"Sir be damned!" I snapped out.
"Pay him off this evening," was all that gentleman said; and that evening I was on the road again.