Farquhar laughed at this last idea, but Lucian asked an explanation. The American impressed him as a very careful speaker, not given to random words.
“Well,” said Charlesworth, stroking his chin, “these chaps here don’t take to your Britishers, and that’s the bed-rock fact.”
“What’s going to happen, do you think?”
“I guess we shall be running into some dirt before long.”
“Most pacific nation in the world, the Belgians,” said Lucian, cheerfully. “Been fought over so many times that they haven’t a ha’porth of kick left in them.”
“Yes; good square fighting’s not in their line. It’s the stab in the dark they go in for,” said the American, drily. “Two-thirds of the continental anarchists hail from Brussels. I’ve run Dutchmen and I’ve run Kanakas, and I guess I can make out to put up with these stiff-necked Britishers of yours; but the Belgian mongrels are enough to make an oyster sick. However, the crew’s not my affair; and if Mr. Farquhar’s satisfied, why, so am I. And I hope I may be wrong.”
Charlesworth was no croaker; having given his warning he left the matter, and they went down into the quarry talking of possibilities rather than of presentiments. Lucian could not see the grounds of his forebodings; the men seemed friendly, both with the manager and between themselves, and they were certainly all that is gracious to him personally. Lucian thought in French when he spoke to a Frenchman.
They stayed all day at the quarry, taking lunch in the engine-room on slim little sausages and beer. Later on, Lucian assisted at the modelling class, acting as interpreter for Charlesworth, who could not always find the right technical terms. He was a strict master, extreme to mark what was done amiss. “I’ve no opinion of soft jobs,” he said to Lucian, who had stood listening to what seemed a very harsh rebuke for a very small fault on the part of an elderly English workman who had taken Lucian’s fancy. “Keep them up to the mark, that’s my motto. I never will tolerate scamping. Give me good work and I’ll give you good wages; but if a man don’t handle the tools the way he ought, why, he can go! and good riddance, say I.”
“That’s all right for you, with your confounded meticulous correctitude and exactitude, my friend,” said Lucian, still vicariously sore; “but how would you feel if you knew that the worst work they put in was head and shoulders better than the best work you put in?”
“I guess I should turn to and take a hand at something I could do.”